A Heart to Serve Read online

  My nephew Chet Frist, who volunteered to be my travel aide for the year, traveled the length and breadth of Tennessee with me, meeting and talking with real people. As Howard Baker had predicted in one of our early conversations, I soon came to love the people of my home state. I hoped they loved me, but even if they didn’t, it was worth the effort to get into the small towns as well as the larger communities and really share experiences with the people in ways that I never had done before. What a privilege it was to go to every nook and cranny in Tennessee and be able to have substantive, and many times very personal, conversations with others from all walks of life. Everywhere we went, I told people, “My American dream has come true. I set out to be a transplant surgeon, at a time when heart transplant surgery was in its infancy, and lung transplants had never been done. But the real American dream in my family started with my dad. He has been the inspiration behind me and almost everything I do, including medicine, my commitment to Karyn and the boys, and to this new goal of running for the Senate. Without Mother and Dad’s inspiration, I would not have the goal of helping change this country.”

  The press made a big deal about the fact that I had not voted in recent Tennessee elections (they were correct to do so!), and my opponents attempted to make political capital of the fact that I had not served in the armed services, foisting on the public the illusion that I had been hiding away in the safety of Ivy League academia while other young men my age were dying in Vietnam. My opponents rarely mentioned my years of studying medicine, except to imply that because I was a doctor, I must be an elitist who couldn’t relate to everyday people.

  In turn, my campaign team worked to turn that image around, to explain that because I was a doctor, I had spent my life trying to help hurting people, that I knew well the issues relating to abortion and health care and the need for investments and markets to lead the way in scientific discoveries that helped everyday people. Beyond that, as a doctor, I was accustomed to listening to people; most politicians are too busy to listen—really listen—to their constituents, but listening was something I practiced daily. I emphasized that we needed a change in Washington, that I was not interested in becoming a career politician, but that I wanted to serve as a citizen legislator. I pledged to go to Washington if elected, serve two terms at the most, and then return home to Tennessee to live under the same laws that I helped pass.

  That message resonated. Slowly, but surely, the tide began to turn, as more and more people in Tennessee began to see the potential of a citizen legislator going to Washington and actually representing them, rather than himself or herself.

  I could barely talk above a whisper when Karyn and I joined our key team members at the Loews Vanderbilt Plaza the night of the primary election. I had talked with so many people, spoken to so many groups, my vocal cords finally said, “No more.” I was nervous, but confident as the election results started showing up on the three television screens in the room, each TV tuned in to a different local station. I wore my lucky tie, given to me by an eight-year-old boy, a trademark Save the Children tie with a stars-and-stripes pattern that I had worn at campaign stops all across the state.

  One of the local television stations interviewed Karyn as the returns began to mount in our favor. Karyn had done yeoman’s work for months balancing personal and campaign life and taking care of our three young boys, as we traversed Tennessee throughout the hot summer of 1994. Yet when the interviewer asked her if she was ready to launch into a major Senate race, and another stretch of campaigning with me, Karyn was surprisingly upbeat. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I actually see him more now than I ever have before. He never asked me for advice when he was doing surgery, but he does in this, so it has been fun to work together.”

  The interviewer pressed, “What are your plans if he wins tonight?”

  Karyn responded, “We’ll get up in the morning and go around the state to meet as many people as we can, to get conservative Democrats and Independents on our side. We’re not going to slow down.”

  By midevening on August 4, 1994, the election returns showed that of the six candidates in the Republican primary, I had received 48 percent of the vote—enough for an eighteen-point victory margin. As I mounted the platform to thank a roomful of supporters, the astounding truth hit me: I was now the Republican nominee for U.S. senator from Tennessee! We were now in the major leagues of politics. It was like graduating from medical school and finally becoming a doctor—and realizing that the grueling surgical residency was still to come.

  The next morning, just as Karyn had said we would, we started out on our Victory Bus Tour, crossing Tennessee to meet the people, listen to their concerns and needs, and ask for their votes.

  Winning the primary election in Tennessee was difficult enough, but as we geared up to throw ourselves into the fracas against Senator Sasser, we knew the campaign had to take on renewed energy. Among our slogans in the general election against Sasser, we used “Eighteen years is long enough” and “Dump Sasser!” (Tom Perdue hired a dump truck to travel the state to get the point across) and one of my favorites, “Listen, Diagnose, and Fix.”

  I continued to emphasize that in contrast to the incumbent senator I was challenging, who after eighteen years had become entrenched in the Washington political machine, I planned to go to Washington for no more than twelve years before stepping aside for another citizen legislator to take my place. I had no intention of becoming addicted to the constant cycle of trying to get re-elected to maintain my position on Capitol Hill. Quite the contrary, I wanted to go to Washington and operate much as I had as a physician: to listen, to diagnose the problem, and to fix it. I hammered on the point that many Washington politicians became so enamored of holding on to political power, or their careers, that it clouded their judgment and decision making. No longer were they serving the country primarily so much as serving themselves. It was a simple message, but a message that resonated with the people of Tennessee.

  Political language guru Frank Luntz as well as Karl Rove, strategist for Texas governor George W. Bush, both popped in for a couple of days to express interest. Phil Gramm gave us the National Republican Senatorial Campaign’s financial support. The national party sent us some encouragement and reinforcements in the form of a group of bright young campaign workers, fresh out of college. Their energy added to that of our group of novices and was refreshing. Prolonged campaigning is for the young, the young at heart, or the well seasoned; in any case, it is not a high-paying job. But our team worked tirelessly.

  Oddly, the newcomers rarely referred to me as Dr. Frist. Instead, they insisted on calling me “the candidate.” When they questioned our local regulars, the people who had been with me from the beginning, about what I believed about this or that issue, they always phrased the question: “What does the candidate think about this?” Or, “When did the candidate do that?” After a while, we all realized that to the people who started out with me, I was a friend; to the political professionals, I was a product to be packaged and sold to the public—I was “The Candidate.” It struck me as funny, but most of the people close to me almost resented the impersonal attitudes demonstrated by the young kids who were helping us. Had it not been for their sincere desire to see me elected, the homegrown, loyal team might not have put up with the outsiders.

  In their defense, the newcomers were merely doing their jobs; they were looking at the polls, studying the numbers, looking for trends, searching for ways to exploit our positives or our opponent’s negatives. They were not being rude or intentionally disrespectful; this was how most elected candidates succeeded. Moreover, time was short. The Tennessee Republican primary took place on August 4, and the general election day was November 7, just a few short months away. We had a lot of work to do in covering the state. Once again, we set out by motor coach, traveling the state in a forty-foot, Greyhound-type bus, stopping at every town we came to.

  A steady flux of Republican senators passed through and joined us on the campa
ign bus. Only recently did my good friend and colleague, Senator Kit Bond, tell me what he said to the folks in Washington when asked to report back to them on the status of my campaign after a visit in 1994. He said: “Well, for a Senate candidate…he makes a pretty darn good heart surgeon.” I guess my campaign style wasn’t exactly polished by Washington standards. But Tennesseans were beginning to respond.

  At our last staff meeting on the morning before the election, Tom Perdue thanked the members of our team, saying it was one of the finest groups of which he’d been a part. Tom talked about my desire to serve being a unique aspect of our candidacy. The night before the election, Karyn and I went to a service at Two Rivers Baptist Church, in Nashville. A friend who attends the church suggested the service, as it would be an opportunity to reflect on the past year and pray. Now, Tom alluded to the possibility of divine providence guiding our steps. “It’s almost like the Good Lord wants this man to succeed,” Tom said, nodding toward me. “We have had so many needs, and we have been up against the wall so many times, and we have wondered how it was going to work, when out of the clear, one of you has emerged. Those of you who have worked on campaigns before know that is not the norm.”

  On election night, once again we gathered at the Loews Vanderbilt Plaza to await the returns. Karyn and the boys, Mother and Dad, Tommy and Trisha, sister Mary and her husband Lee, sister Dottie, brother Bobby and his wife, Carol, Karyn’s mother, Kathryn, and other relatives and a throng of our closest supporters gathered in an upstairs suite, while supporters from across the state waited downstairs in the hotel ballroom. The mood in the suite was one of reserved confidence; we knew we had done all that we could do, and now it was up to the voters.

  Shortly after the polls closed, Vice President Al Gore called to congratulate me on winning the Senate seat. He had been following the vote and knew that the numbers told the story. I thanked him for his call and quipped, “That thousand dollars I gave your campaign in 1988 has sure caused me a lot of trouble over the last several months!”

  Within minutes of my hanging up with the vice president, Senator Sasser called our suite at the hotel. The room quickly grew quiet as everyone in the suite watched with bated breath as I talked to the eighteen-year Senate veteran. Senator Sasser graciously congratulated me, and I thanked him and wished him the best. He had served Tennessee and our country admirably, and I told him so, thanking him for his service and asking for his help in the future so I could do likewise. “I know this was a hard-fought campaign on both of our parts; give [your wife] Mary my best, as well.” As I hung up the telephone, I looked at Tom Perdue and gave him a thumbs-up sign. Then I hugged and kissed Karyn as the people in the crowded room burst into cheers. “What time is it?” Karyn asked, surprised that definitive election results were in so soon after the polls had closed.

  “Eleven after eight,” someone else said.

  I was overwhelmed with restrained emotion as the reality set in: I was the new United States senator from the state of Tennessee. “Golly…,” I finally managed to say. Everyone in the suite started hugging one another and gushing congratulations. It was an incredible experience for our entire team. We had started with no political acumen and no political experience, and yet here we were, victorious. Anything in life is possible.

  Tom and I went into the inner room of the suite to talk briefly about the acceptance speech that I would be giving in a few minutes. Neither of us was given to emotional expressions; in both of our lines of work, we had learned to control our emotions, but that night, we hugged like two brothers who had won the big game, because in a sense, we had. “You took the lead and you never lost it,” Tom told me, as I thanked him. And I could not have done it without his faith in me and leadership of our motley crew of a campaign. I likely would not have won without Tom Perdue.

  We remained upstairs in our suite until Senator Sasser went on television to formally concede the election, then we went downstairs to greet the enthusiastic supporters who were absolutely jubilant in the ballroom.

  With my family on the platform behind me, as well as longtime friends and supporters, including graciously and enthusiastically supportive Bob Corker and his wife Elizabeth, I stood before the cheering crowd. My brother Tommy stood just over my shoulder; Mary and Lee were on my other side. Karyn and the boys were right next to me, and right down front in a wheelchair sat my mother and my frail but excited eighty-three-year-old father.

  “It’s a political earthquake in Tennessee in 1994!” I began my thanks and acceptance speech. Then I turned to Karyn. “I love you,” I said as I hugged and kissed her and the crowd erupted in cheers. “I cherish your values, and I appreciate your unwavering support over the last year.” I looked at our three young boys. “And these guys, Harrison, and Jonathan, and Bryan, you guys are my inspiration.” The crowd burst into applause again.

  I spoke briefly to the crowd. “From day one, this campaign was a venture of faith, and everything we have done since that day has been based on the belief that one individual, one person in America today, can truly make a difference. And now tonight, what the political experts predicted could never happen, has happened! One person can make a difference…and I will carry good, commonsense, old-fashioned Tennessee values to the United States Senate.”

  As the room filled with cheers again, I took off the stars-and-stripes Save the Children tie, the same well-recognized tie I had worn on so many occasions over the preceding months. “I’m going to do something special,” I said. “This tie…is symbolic of the American dream, of the American spirit. Today, I want to give this tie to someone who means more to me than anybody in the world, someone who embodies all that is good about America, who is actually the personification of the American dream. It is somebody I love, somebody I respect, and somebody who has served his fellow men and fellow women over the last fifty-five years in the practice of medicine.”

  The audience suddenly realized who I was talking about and burst into spontaneous applause. “I want to give this tie to someone who, without his teachings, and without his lessons, I would not be before you today—I want to give this to my father, Dr. Thomas Frist.” I walked off the platform, leaned down, and wrapped the tie around Dad’s neck. Weak as he was, Dad hugged me emotionally, our faces touching, as I steadied him in my arms.

  When the votes were fully tallied, the political pundits were shocked to discover that we had upset our opponent by two hundred thousand votes, the largest margin of votes of any statewide election in Tennessee history. The victory, of course, made national news. I was the only challenger to beat a full-term incumbent senator in the 1994 election. What did that feel like? It was a combination of elation and exhaustion at the same time.

  Looking back, it is easy now to see that the timing was right for my election, as well as those of other conservative candidates. The 1994 election became a referendum on big government; the Republican victories were won in part because of the threats posed by the specter of the Clinton health-care plan. Newt Gingrich did a stellar job of putting together the so-called Contract with America, a clear-cut, understandable plan for what the Republicans would do if elected. Although the contract was a great prop for those based in Washington, inside-the-Beltway talking heads greatly overstated its significance in the hinterland. I know the contract itself played essentially no role in our Tennessee race and, I expect, in most Senate races around the country. Most Americans had no clue what the contract was; indeed, it became famous after the election. We won in 1994 because Americans rejected the big-government solutions and the reflexive liberalism that dominated the first two years of President Clinton’s term.

  In 1994, Republicans rode to a sweeping victory, regaining control of the House of Representatives as well as the Senate. Gears had shifted from earning the opportunity to actually serving. Thrilled that I would be going to Washington to serve the people of Tennessee, I also knew that there was little time to rest on our laurels. We had much work to do, and we needed to set up a Se
nate office in Washington, something nobody on our campaign staff had ever done before. The response of friends and family members as we watched the news reported on television was, “We won! We won! Now what are we supposed to do?”

  8

  New Kid on the Hill

  Between the election and Thanksgiving, I convinced Mark Tipps, the bright, young Nashville attorney who had played an instrumental role in my campaign, to move to Washington and serve as my chief of staff—a staff that, at that point, consisted of Mark and me. Mark and I essentially lived together during those first few weeks. Karyn, Mark, Tom Perdue, and I traveled to our nation’s capital in late November. My first day in Washington as the senator-elect, I was to check in at the Russell Senate Office Building for an orientation meeting with Georgia senator Paul Coverdell.

  That morning Tom, Mark, and I stepped out of the Hyatt Hotel on New Jersey Avenue and were nearly overwhelmed by the majesty of the U.S. Capitol looming nearby. We began walking up Constitution Avenue toward Capitol Hill. “Okay, where are we going?” I asked.

  Tom pulled out our agenda for the day and read the office address for Paul Coverdell. The three of us looked at each other sheepishly. It was obvious that none of us had any idea how to get to the Russell Building. “I’ll bet it’s one of those big white marble buildings,” Mark ventured.