U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist blew into town Saturday sounding — and acting — like something other than a potential 2008 presidential candidate.

The Tennessee Republican came and went almost unnoticed — which apparently was the way he wanted it. There was little advance publicity and virtually no media.

The venue was the 125-member state GOP executive committee, not exactly a fountain of youth. His brief address lacked any red meat or applause lines normally reserved for stump speeches.

“He’s not running for president,” surmised Columbia-based political consultant Terry Sullivan.

And there may be reason.

The majority leader is not without his problems — or distractions.

Frist is still dogged by a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into his sale of stock in his family’s health care firm. He told trustees who manage his assets in a supposedly blind trust that they should divest his shares of HCA Inc., the company founded by his father and brother.

The sell order raised eyebrows because it came just a month before the company publicly reported that quarterly earnings wouldn’t meet analysts’ estimates. That news sent the stock plunging by about 15 percent.

Frist also has angered evangelical Christians, a major GOP constituency, by supporting expanded human embryonic stem cell research.

Frist said nothing about 2008. His whole focus was this year’s mid-term congressional elections and the importance of rallying the troops — many of whom appear dejected and discouraged.

National surveys show Republican enthusiasm has waned, thanks primarily to a series of political missteps by President Bush.

If that attitude is not reversed, it could be a potentially troubling trend that could hamper GOP turnout this fall.

“If this environment holds, you have to assume it’s going to tip for the Democrats,” Republican pollster Ed Goeas told Knight Ridder newspapers.

Frist predicted the GOP would survive the election in pretty good condition because, “we’re the party of ideas.”

The majority leader told the party activists that it is incumbent upon them as “grass-roots people” to put up yard signs, raise money and organize.

“Yes, this is going to be a tough election,” he said. “But it’s not impossible. We’re going to do it because we’re ready. We’re going to do it because we know how. We’re going to do it because the same values that you have in South Carolina are the same values that I see in Tennessee.”

Then came the kicker.

“So, I’m here to join arms with you. That’s the only reason I’m here on this trip.”

And most believed him.

Frist made two other stops while in the state.

He attended a fundraiser Friday night in Hartsville for Rep. Ralph Norman, R-York, a Rock Hill real estate developer seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. John Spratt of York.

Saturday afternoon Frist attended a barbecue in his honor on a private farm in Orangeburg.

Reach Bandy at (803) 771-8648.