Sen. Bill Frist has been a busy man lately. Between straightening out the president on the risks of bio-terrorism and rushing to the aid of fallen gerontocrat Strom Thurmond, he has been wielding his doctor bag for all kinds of political advantage.
Frist has always enjoyed his status as a man of medicine in the nasty world of politics, and on some health issues it has given him added clout. Moreover, rushing to the aid of anyone who happens to keel over in the presence of a camera creates a good visual for the evening news.
Last week, he rushed to Thurmond after the 98-year-old Republican senator from South Carolina fainted on the Senate floor. Early in the term, with membership evenly distributed between the parties, Thurmond had been the subject of considerable death speculation, although that waned after Democrats gained Senate control.
Frist also has been able to push himself to the front talking about the hazards of bio-terrorism—the promotion of disease for terrorist purposes—after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. After a bit of initial grandstanding on the subject—just in case no one was telling his buddy George W. Bush about the problem—Frist has focused on the need for public health preparedness to reduce the inherent risks.
Frist’s good sense as a doctor sometimes creates problems for him as a loyal foot soldier in the Republican ranks. He was elected in 1994 as a rabid libertarian conservative inveighing about government intrusions in people’s personal lives. He even knocked motorcycle helmet laws and anti-smoking campaigns, sure signs of a physician taking the hypocritical—not Hippocratic—oath.
But while that sort of thing was OK for the red-meat season of campaign politics, Frist is at least sensible enough to put it away as a member of the Senate and instead call on government to be doing the sort of things it should be doing. Of course, Frist doesn’t want to be merely a foot soldier, and he knows that painting oneself into the right-hand corner isn’t wise when you’re playing for bigger stakes.
The security tradeoff
Do people really care about security in public buildings? Or is it just the appearance of security that matters? In this new era of terrorism in America, the balance everywhere has tilted in favor of security, but that hasn’t always been the case.
Consider this moment from the 1994 Metro budget hearings. General Services Department director Sam McPherson was asked about the new security system in the Metro Public Building, more commonly known as the courthouse. “We had some problems at first, but we’ve got them resolved now,” he said. These “problems” had little to do with actually maintaining security and a lot to do with not annoying people.
The solutions were turning down the sensitivity on the metal detectors and allowing people to bring their small pocketknives into the building. The implicit trade-off was less security for more public acceptance. The point is not that McPherson did the wrong thing. The system continued to keep most of the heavy weapons away, and the judges who had pushed for the improved security system still felt safer in their courtrooms.
The point is that security is a matter of degree, and absolute security is not attainable. However, the closer any security operator tries to get to certainty, the more intrusive the last steps must be—and the more challenging it is to win public support for the system.
A shrinking voter bloc
The recent failure of the United Auto Workers to win a union-organizing vote at the Nissan plant in Smyrna can’t have pleased any of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates. Workers at Nissan turned back the campaign by a 2-to-1 margin, the second such vote in a dozen years.
It’s not so much that the 5,000 workers at Nissan represent a particularly large voting bloc in a state likely to cast nearly 2 million votes; rather, it’s the importance of a strong union movement in rebuilding a strong Democratic Party in the state. While union leaders no longer can be expected to “deliver” their memberships at the polls, the unions remain a strong channel of political communication and a reliable source of campaign volunteers.
While much has been said about the distinct Republican tilt of white voters in the South, that reflects as much as anything a growth in affluence in the region. Many blue-collar voters still recognize their natural allegiance with the worker-aligned party. And labor has notably punished candidates in the state.
During the 1994 election, many unions refused to back Congressman Jim Cooper, who was then seeking the Senate seat Republican Fred Thompson ultimately won. Cooper had been a prominent obstacle to President Clinton’s drive for health care reform. The unions made Cooper pay. As one operative for another campaign recalled of that election, “They weren’t much good at helping us, but they were sure good at screwing Cooper.”
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