Frist Presidential Bid In Jeopardy, Pundits Say
From Reuters: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s recent stock sale threatens to cost him and fellow Republicans politically as he mulls a 2008 presidential bid and investigators examine whether he violated any trading laws, political analysts said. “Frist’s White House campaign hasn’t really taken off, and this adds weight to an idling plane,” said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia.
“He may prove to be totally innocent, but this is a negative — a big distraction — for his presidential ambitions and management of the Senate,” said Ethan Siegal of the Washington Exchange, a firm that tracks politics and legislation on Capitol Hill for institutional investors.
Frist has been put on the defensive by a disclosure last week that federal investigators are examining the senator’s June 13 request for a trustee to sell all of his remaining stock in HCA Inc., a Nashville-based hospital company founded by members of his family.
On July 13, days after the Frist stock sales were completed, HCA warned that second-quarter operating earnings were likely to fall short of analysts estimates, sending its shares tumbling 9 percent. Frist has denied any wrongdoing.
But it has given Democrats fresh ammunition to bolster their claim, one they plan to make in next year’s congressional elections, that Republican lawmakers are ethically challenged.
Such partisan fire has been previously aimed mostly at House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican admonished on three separate matters last year by the House Ethics Committee.
At a news conference on Monday, Frist, a wealthy surgeon and influential force in Congress on health care issues, said he had no inside information about the stock and sold the shares in the hospital company merely to avoid the appearance of a possible conflict of interest.
Frist said he began moving to sell the stock held in a trust about three months before its value dropped. He said he acted with the approval of the Senate Ethics Committee, and will now cooperate with investigators from the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission.
“And now I’m going back to work,” Frist told reporters, declining to take any questions.
Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, rose to Frist’s defense on Tuesday, calling him in a Senate speech “one of the most gifted, hard-working and honest people I have ever met.”
Afterward, McConnell told reporters: “He enjoys full support in our (55-member Senate Republican) caucus.”
At the Senate Republicans’ weekly closed-door meeting on Tuesday, Frist, who was first elected to the Senate in 1994 and rose to leader eight years later, again defended himself and took questions from colleagues, lawmakers said.
Sen. Judd Gregg (news, bio, voting record), a New Hampshire Republican, said, “Bill Frist is an extraordinarily ethical individual and we’re lucky to have him in the Senate.”
A Senate Democrat, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “This doesn’t help Bill Frist. It just looks bad. We’ll see what happens.”
Pollster John Zogby, who conducted a survey in June that found Frist far behind several possible Republican presidential contenders, including Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, said, “For a fledgling presidential campaign, this isn’t the best kickoff.”
Frist is to go to Iowa, site of the initial 2008 party-nominating presidential contest, on October 22 to address a Republican dinner.
Stuart Rothenberg of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, which tracks presidential contests, said the stock sale may hurt Frist, but until the investigation is completed its premature to predict how much.
Rothenberg said: “Frist has bigger (political) problems — lack of a Republican message, difficulty dealing with the House and weakness as a presidential contender. He isn’t one of the party’s better speakers, and has difficulty exciting people.”
