Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.NEWT GINGRICH; MASTER OF THE HOUSE
Newt Gingrich had a favorite game when he was growing up in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. His pal Dennis Yantz would pretend to beat him up and leave him crumpled on the curb. "When a car would pull up to see what was wrong," Yantz recalls, "Newt would jump up and scream 'SURPRISE!' We would do this over and over again." For some reason, Yantz says, Newt always wanted to be the one who played dead.
The Speaker of the House finds himself in deep trouble this Christmas, which is no surprise for one whose whole career has been a series of near-death...
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