Frist Says He Won't Seek 2008 Presidential Nomination

[Ron Burgundy]

Bloomberg - Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Republican Leader Bill Fristwon't seek his party's presidential nomination in 2008, sayingthe ``season of being an elected official has come to a close.''
Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist won't seek his party's presidential nomination in 2008, saying the ``season of being an elected official has come to a close.''

``I do not intend to run for president in 2008,'' Frist said in a statement. Frist didn't seek re-election to the Senate representing Tennessee this year and is leaving Congress.

Frist had a rapid rise through the ranks in Congress, becoming Republican leader in just his second term in 2002. He later struggled to navigate his dual roles as Senate leader and presidential aspirant.

He has trailed better-known Republicans such as former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Arizona Senator John McCain in polls gauging support for possible presidential contenders.

Frist ``likely realized that he had little chance and thus made the prudent decision not to run,'' said Mark Rozell, a public policy professor at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. ``No one put him in the top-tier of potential candidates for the nomination.''

He ``was not attracting much support at this early stage, so his exit will have little impact on the field of candidates overall,'' Rozell said.

Surgeon

A heart surgeon, Frist made his first bid for public office in 1994 when he successfully challenged incumbent Democratic Senator Jim Sasser of Tennessee. He was President George W. Bush's choice to replace Trent Lott of Mississippi as majority leader in 2002 when Lott stepped aside after making racially insensitive remarks.

Frist has presided over passage of some key portions of Bush's agenda, including legislation steering many class-action lawsuits from state to federal court, a measure expanding free trade in Central America and a $39.7 billion package of cuts to benefits programs to help curb the federal budget deficit.

Still, his tenure has been marked by a series of policy shifts and missteps that have spurred criticism even from Republicans.

This year, he proposed and then quickly dropped a plan to give $100 rebates to taxpayers to offset high gasoline prices as party leaders, including House Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, criticized the idea as ineffective.

Frist also shifted his stance on immigration, first supporting Bush's call for a comprehensive rewrite of immigration law coupled with tougher border enforcement, then later joining the call by some lawmakers to focus only on border security initially.

Judicial Nominees

Last year, Frist wound up on the sidelines as seven Republicans joined with an equal number of Democrats to strike a deal clearing the way for the confirmation of some judicial nominees. The May agreement ended Frist's effort to eliminate the use of the filibuster, a tactic to block votes, against federal court nominees.

Frist's expertise as a physician also was called into question last year when he told senators that his review of video images suggested Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman, was ``not somebody in a persistent vegetative state.'' After a court battle over whether to keep her alive ended with her death, an autopsy found she had been blind and had a severely atrophied brain.

His presidential ambitions were further clouded in September when the Securities and Exchange Commission began a probe of his decision in June 2005 to sell shares in HCA Inc., a hospital chain founded by his father and brother. The sale, completed by July 1 that year, came weeks before the company issued a second- quarter earnings estimate that failed to meet analysts' expectations, pushing down HCA's stock price. Frist has denied any wrongdoing.

He scored low in recent polls about possible Republican presidential contenders.

Giuliani and McCain garnered support in the 26 to 33 percent range in polls, according to PollingReport.com. Frist was favored by no more than 4 percent in the polls of Republican or Republican-leaning voters.

To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net .