The central problem for Dr. Frist is that he needs the Democrats, or at least a few of them, but he also needs to hold together a sprawling, predominately conservative Republican caucus. So he promises more bipartisanship, but only to a point.
“I can play hardball as well as anybody,” he said, unprompted, at the end of a recent interview. “That’s what I did, cut people’s hearts out. On the other hand, I do it to cure them, to heal them, to make them better.”
Democrats, whose hearts are presumably on the table, express skepticism. “I think Frist’s personal instincts are to try to be bipartisan, and at least, to a degree, accommodating,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. “But I think he is pulled by his caucus and may well be pulled by his presidential ambitions to be more hard-line than maybe where his gut is.”
So he’s cutting Democrats’ heats out … for their benefit. What a good samaritan. The five people who want Frist to run for president in 2008 had better hope he can start appeasing the conservative base in more subtle ways.