*As Senator Bill Frist was being led toward the convention stage through the bowels of Philadelphia’s ComCast arena on Thursday night during Bush’s acceptance speech, he encountered Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, whose name had figured in vice-presidential speculation for weeks before Frist’s own name got some serious boosting late in the game. Ridge warmly congratulated the senator on getting an Ed-Flex plank into the party platform (as one of three platform committee co-chairs), and the senator responded with crediting its success to backing by Ridge.
Frist also encountered another celebrity on that backstage circuit– Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor/bodybuilder who had had, more or less on the QT during the last year or so, a heart bypass operation. The two engaged in animated conversation about the operation, which had been performed by a friend of Frist’s.
