Matt, celebrating an apparent breakdown in GOP message discipline, notes in passing that:
Bill Frist has taken this up as his pet cause in a clear effort to become the candidate of the James Dobson crowd.
Alot of Democrats, I think, are rooting for Frist to get the 2008presidential nomination. He’s a lightweight, wishy-washy moderate, theysay - the Republican John Kerry. But statements like this from Mattmake me think that Frist could just be the Dems’ worst nightmare.Before the name “Terri Schiavo” hit the airwaves, did anyonethink of Bill Frist as “the candidate of the James Dobson crowd”? Isure didn’t. But after a mere four weeks of X-Treme Political Makeover,no less a hardened intellect than Matt Yglesias is regarding him as acrazed bible-thumper on the order of Santorum or Coburn. That kind oftransformation takes a special talent. The thing about Frist isn’t thathe’s actually moderate but can act like an extremist, or that he’sactually an extremist but can act moderate. The thing about Frist isthat he isn’t actually anything. He’s whatever the Median Republican Voter wants him to be. And that’s why he’s trouble.
Of course, as I alluded to before, John Kerry had this same qualityand it didn’t seem to help him much at all. Of course, Kerry wasn’t asgood at miming beliefs as Frist is, even beliefs he actually held.But more to the point, a crucial difference between the two partiesexplains why John Kerry gets in trouble for the kind of politicalwind-testing that earns Bill Frist kudos: As Ezra has notedbefore, Republicans can afford candidates that are effectively ciphers,because Republican candidates are defined by their party, notvice-versa. The Republican Party really only has two missions: Figureout what they can and can’t sell to 51% of Americans, and find acandidate who can be injected with it without coughing it back up.
Sure, McCain and Giuliani and even Allen might prove popular amongAmericans, but they all have a key disadvantage: They’re trapped inthemselves, at the mercy of the next four years - a lifetime inAmerican politics. They have beliefs and attitudes that define theirpublic persona, and they can’t change those beliefs to accommodate eachnew RNC blast fax. But Frist can, becausehis only real belief is in political expediency. In a Senate MajorityLeader, a position that turns on one’s ability to appeal to one’s ownparty caucus, this kind of attitude can prove fatal. But if you’relooking for a presidential candidate whose only skill is being what youneed him to be, Frist is perfect. No wonder Rove is taking an interest in him.
