No matter how powerful a stump speaker Bill Frist becomes, if October sees Congress leave without these three urgent pieces of business completed, there's going to be a huge hole in the senator's core campaign speech that even the best delivery won't be able to hide. He won't be able to put in what the Senate left out.
If, on the other hand, the tribunals are established, the president's authority to use his Article II powers to direct the NSA confirmed, and Keisler sworn in, Bill Frist has a powerful claim on having led in this crucial period of the war when the MSM, urged on by the hard left, is attempting to persuade America that the war cannot be won, and that even if lost, will not have serious consequences for the country.
Rarely does a would-be president get to influence his own record so directly so close to the primaries. If Bill Frist isn't talking about his achievements in the fall of '06 come the winter of '07, his candidacy could be over before it began.