Republican congressman Michael Forbes of New York says he agonized for days before deciding to oppose Newt Gingrich’s reelection as House speaker on January 7. “I’ve had an upset stomach,” Forbes says. “I haven’t slept well.” Some of his House colleagues are dubious. They attribute his sudden conversion to the anti-Gingrich camp to a Sunday morning editorial in Newsday, the Long Island newspaper. It extolled GOP congressman Peter King of New York, who has repeatedly criticized Gingrich, while dismissing Forbes contemptuously as “a Gingrich sycophant.” Within hours after the editorial was published on December 29, Forbes was telling the New York Times that he wouldn’t vote for Gingrich. The Forbes story got front-page, above-the-fold treatment in the Times and was a big item on TV news shows as well.
The most dramatic impact of Forbes’s defection was on Gingrich and his supporters. Before complacent, worried only about thwarting House Democrats, they began feverishly lining up Republicans to prevent opposition to Gingrich from spreading. Their aim was to isolate Forbes as the lone GOP renegade. The Gingrich forces mounted the most crisply organized Republican campaign since Congress was voting on the Contract With America in 1995. “It goes from 7 in the morning to midnight,” moans Forbes. “They fax everything they have to every office. They’re doing everything they can to hold on.” The contagion was mostly, though not entirely, contained. “As Forbes goes, so goes Forbes,” sneered a Gingrich ally. But it’s not that simple. Gingrich probably will be elected speaker again, though an end to his troubles is nowhere in sight.
