A GOP Star Goes Out

WASHINGTON: Bill Paxon says he's retiring from Congress to be with his baby girl. But TIME congressional correspondent Jay Carney says another figure, considerably less cherubic, drove Paxon's decision: Newt Gingrich.

"Gingrich launched an all-out campaign to keep Paxon from running against Dick Armey for Majority Leader in the December party elections," Carney says. "He let it be known that this was a test of loyalty: to his leadership, to the party, to the cause. And he told the rest of the leadership that if they backed Paxon over Armey, he [Gingrich] would find challengers to replace them."

Carney was there Wednesday when the onetime rebel sat down with reporters and told them that he had the votes to beat Armey all along. "But I got the sense that Paxon calculated how ugly the fight was going to be, and just didn't want it that badly," Carney says. That should make his daughter very happy.