NEWT'S CASH MACHINE

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One important part of the cash-suction operation is the multitude of Contract with America "coalitions,'' which are groups of lobbyists who raise funds to press members of the House for passage of elements of the Contract. "You have coalition creep,'' says Mark Isakowitz, a leader of the Coalition for America's Future, which pushes tax cuts. "You could spend most of your time going from one coalition meeting to another." These are coordinated for Gingrich by Representative John Boehner. His Thursday Group, a round table of representatives from the various coalitions, meets every week at 11 a.m. in a room within Gingrich's suite of offices in the Capitol. Unconstrained by rules of public disclosure, they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lobbying efforts, most of it raised from large corporations.

The Coalition for a Balanced Budget, for instance, raised roughly $80,000 for pro-G.O.P. radio spots and $250,000 for a "patch-through" phone campaign. Just before crucial House votes, people were called at home and asked whether they agreed with the G.O.P. position. Those who did could be connected directly to the office of their representative in Congress to urge a vote for the bill.

Supportive research for the G.O.P. revolution is provided by the Progress and Freedom Foundation, the think tank through which the Speaker's college course was funded. Though Gingrich is no longer connected formally with the foundation, his sympathetic attention to what it produces is enough to bring it support from people who see it as an indirect route to the Speaker's ear. "Of all the think tanks, that's one whose reports are not just going to sit on the shelf,'' says lobbyist Jim Tozzi, whose firm has helped tobacco and chemical firms fight government regulations. "If I give somebody money, I want to make sure the report will be read. If I give to that group, I know it will be."

Democrats are hoping the special counsel that the ethics committee plans to hire will poke around in the Gingrich money machine until the investigator hits something foul. If the ethics committee balks at any request by the counsel to expand the probe, the Democrats can be counted on to recall the words of a celebrated House firebrand. To place limits on the work of the special counsel, he declared, would be seen as "an attempt by the ethics committee to control the scope and direction of the investigation.'' Who said that? Gingrich did, seven years ago, when he was pushing to widen the investigation of Jim Wright.

--Reported by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Nina Burleigh/Washington