Healing America The Life Of United States Senate Majority Leader William H. Frist, M.d. And The Issues That Shape Our Times

Introduction ; ;In the months leading up to January 20, 2001, the winds of "compassionate conservatism" swept across the country bringing in a Republican president and a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate. Five months later-May 24, 2001-after reaching a late night deal with Senator Tom Daschle and other top Democrats, Republican Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party to declare himself an Independent and caucus with the Democrats. The ripple effects were many-not the least of which occurred when Trent Lott passed the gavel to Tom Daschle (the South Dakota senator representing 530,000 voters) and work in the House and Senate came to a screeching halt. ;For eighteen months, the Democratically controlled Senate, operating out of a one-vote majority, made every attempt to stall the Bush-led Republican agenda. In the few times when the Democrats were unable to block a Republican initiative, Daschle spoke with disdain and frequently of the "partisan politics" that had come to dominate life in Washington, D.C. In contrast, Daschle himself became known as a wolfish partisan "whose strong opinions were only partially disguised by a lamb's demeanor." ;Having lost the majority, and control, following Jim Jeffords's decision-some might say defection-President Bush looked ahead to the November 2002 elections. In a strategic move to win back both, he asked a relatively unknown, first-term senator from Tennessee, Bill Frist, the son of a local country doctor and a gifted surgeon himself, to lead the GOP's Senate Campaign Committee, whose job it was, and is, to elect Republicans to office. Frist went to work, and on election night, November 2002, he quietly succeeded, and a shocked Daschle handed the gavel back to Trent Lott. Senator Lott promised the president and the American people that he'd immediately get to work on the Republican agenda. ;Then came the one-hundredth birthday party for Senator Strom Thurmond. ;The night was significant for several reasons. Strom Thurmond was one of the more notable figures in recorded American history. He had been a teacher, an athletic coach, and a superintendent of education. He studied law under his father, Judge J. William Thurmond, and became a city attorney, county attorney, state senator, and, eventually, a circuit court judge. Though exempt from serving in the military, Strom-who had already been an army reservist and a commissioned second lieutenant by the age of twenty-one-volunteered for active duty on the day the United States entered World War II. As a member of the eighty-second Airborne, he parachuted behind enemy lines on D-Day and helped secure the foothold for the Allies to liberate the European continent. ;For distinguished service, Senator Thurmond was awarded five battle stars and eighteen other decorations, including the Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster, the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star for Valor, the Belgian Order of the Crown and the French Cross of War. ;After the war, Strom returned home to South Carolina. He was elected governor in 1946 and then ran as a Dixiecrat (a segregationist platform he later renounced) against Harry Truman for president of the United States. He lost, but was determined to serve America, so he ran for Senate in 1954 and became the only candidate elected to Congress by a write-in vote in American history. At the time of his birthday celebration, he had been reelected eight times since. ;As a young man, he knew people who had seen Andrew Jackson, and he campaigned for the votes of men who fought in the Civil War. He and Herbert Hoover won their first elective office in the same year-1928. He served with about one-fifth of the nearly two thousand people who have been members of the Senate since 1789. And at the time of his birthday, he was nearlMartin, Charles is the author of 'Healing America The Life Of United States Senate Majority Leader William H. Frist, M.d. And The Issues That Shape Our Times', published 2004 under ISBN 9780849918360 and ISBN 0849918367.