WASHINGTON Frist gets ready to replace Lott

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- After performing 250 heart and lung transplants, Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee knows what it's like to be under pressure in the glare of bright lights. Now he wants to do some repair work on the Republican Party.
Frist, a close ally of President Bush, is poised to replace Trent Lott as Senate Republican leader on Monday, when GOP senators will convene in Washington to seek an end to the Lott controversy. Lott stepped down Friday to quell the national firestorm over remarks that he has publicly regretted as racially insensitive.
Political storm
Lott has been at the center of the political firestorm that he ignited Dec. 5 when he suggested at Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party that the nation would have been better served if the South Carolina Republican would have been elected president in 1948 on the largely segregationist Dixiecrat platform.
Though Lott, the son of a Mississippi sharecropper and shipyard worker, conjured up images of the Old South, with all its racial baggage, Frist represents the more inclusive New South. He tries to live Bush's compassionate conservative philosophy.
When he takes time off his Senate duties, Frist offers health-care advice to public housing residents in Washington, D.C., or travels to Africa to work with victims of malnutrition, war and disease in Sudan.
"He's very willing to give of himself," said Ken Isaacs, director of international projects for Samaritan's Purse, a religious organization headed by Franklin Graham, the Rev. Billy Graham's son, that sets up Frist's trips to Africa.
"He's passionate about the human condition. He's passionate about people suffering. He's passionate about the AIDS issue. He's passionate about victims of war."
Similar on issues
On most issues, Frist is not much different from Lott or any of the other Republican senators who come from the party's conservative majority. Liberals were quick to note some of the similarities between Frist's voting record and Lott's.
"Few senators have a worse voting record on civil rights than Trent Lott -- but Bill Frist is one of them," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women.
"Frist has voted against sex education, international family planning, emergency contraception [the morning-after pill], affirmative action, hate-crimes legislation and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act."
But Frist has also shown a willingness to work with Democrats, especially on health issues. He has spearheaded efforts to seek compromises on legislation to overhaul Medicare.
And even when he is unwilling to compromise, Frist tries to avoid antagonizing his opponents.
"This represents more a generational shift than an ideological shift. Frist is a Republican who emphasizes unity. He doesn't come from the anti-government approach," said Ed Gillespie, a Republican consultant. "He has a very positive approach."
Frist, 50, generally steered clear of politics during his medical career. He didn't vote until age 36, and some acquaintances assumed he was a Democrat before he declared a party allegiance.
Won first attempt
He defeated Democratic Sen. Jim Sasser, then chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, in his first attempt at elective office.
Like Bush, he is an avid runner, although Frist competes in marathons while Bush generally runs no more than three or four miles.
Frist served as Bush's liaison to Republican senators during the 2000 presidential campaign and was sometimes mentioned in the press as a possible vice presidential candidate.
He is also considered, especially after this week's developments, a potential presidential candidate in 2008.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., a 30-year Senate veteran, said Frist "was destined to go somewhere" in his political career.
Adopted, dissected cats
Frist has acknowledged, and expressed regret, that he adopted stray cats from animal shelters, then dissected them while he was a student at the Harvard Medical School in the late 1970s.
He has come under fire in the Senate for backing what critics considered a special-interest provision in the legislation that created the new homeland security agency.
The provision, which Congress has agreed to reconsider next year, would exempt the Eli Lilly drug company from some lawsuits involving bad side effects from vaccinations.
Frist said the protection is needed to make sure that Lily and other companies will continue to make vaccines.
Frist has also faced questions about his financial ties to Columbia/HCA, the world's largest hospital company. Frist's father and brother started the company as Hospital Corporation of America in 1968. Frist's stock holdings in the firm are in a blind trust.
Investigation
The Department of Justice is considering a $630 million settlement with the company that would end an investigation into alleged kickbacks to physicians who referred patients to the network's hospitals.
Critics say the amount is a bargain for Columbia/HCA, considering the amount of alleged fraud under investigation.
"Senator Frist has close family and financial ties to HCA," charged Rep. Fortney (Pete) Stark, D-Calif.
"I find it remarkable that at the same time as the Republican party is coalescing around Senator Frist's candidacy for Senate majority leader, the administration is poised to strike a potentially unjustifiable bargain that would benefit his family's company at the expense of American taxpayers."
Republicans were relieved that Frist offered them a way out of the Lott controversy.
"Not only will he be the leader, but there will be a new spirit of unification [in the Senate]," Domenici predicted. "America will meet an incredibly splendid man when they meet this guy."