CAMPAIGN '96: FISHING FOR CONVERTS

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Armey, who grew up on a farm in North Dakota, has a long history of going his own way. When he was 18, he ignored the recommendation of some high school teachers, enrolled in small Jamestown College in North Dakota and went on to earn a doctorate in economics at the University of Oklahoma. In what he describes as "a terrible period in my life," he butted heads with liberal faculty members at several universities before successfully running for Congress in 1984 as a political amateur against a popular incumbent. After a rocky start (he tried bunking in the House gym to save money until he was ejected by Speaker Tip O'Neill), Armey first showed talent as a legislator in 1987 when he won bipartisan support for a bill establishing an independent commission to recommend military bases for closing. He rose so rapidly through his party's ranks that after the 1994 elections, he ran unopposed for the job of majority leader. But he continued to show a defiant streak, sometimes to the point of crudeness. He has suggested that Hillary Clinton was a "Marxist," told Democrats in the House that Bill Clinton was "your President" and (he says unintentionally) referred to an openly gay colleague, Representative Barney Frank, as "Barney Fag."

Yet Armey is too skillful a legislator to stand by his all-or-nothing creed to the point of coming up empty-handed. Despite his vociferous opposition to agricultural subsidies, Armey agreed to the recently passed farm bill, even though it maintained federal payments to big sugar companies. "I had to take what I could get," he says. And he has even come to appreciate Dole, Washington's master deal cutter. "One reason is because my daddy raised me around workhorses and not show horses," Armey said at one of his recent district meetings. "I have come to like Bob Dole."

Before his stand on the minimum wage, some conservatives were grousing that Armey was selling out the revolution by deferring to Dole. But whether his critics are conservatives or moderates, Armey never doubts himself. "I don't do stress," he tells voters. Well, he may not feel it, but he knows how to give it to his party.