Is he really worse than Newt?

You better not try to stand in my way

as I'm walkin' out the door

Take this job and shove it

I ain't workin' here no more.

--Johnny Paycheck

What politician enjoyed the Fourth of July holiday more than Dick Armey? While his colleagues were out hustling for campaign dollars and marching in sticky-hot parades, the House's majority leader was casting for bass on an Army Corps of Engineers lake just northwest of Dallas, humming a Hank Williams tune.

At least, that's what we've come to expect, given the persona Armey has cultivated: a plain-speaking, country-music-loving guy who would (to quote the bumper sticker) "rather be fishing" than putting up with Washington's political BS. This "I-ain't-much-at-speechifyin' " image has served Armey well in his surprising rise through the ranks of the House Republican leadership, setting him apart from other politicians and making him seem personable. But it has cost him respect.

Is Armey just one step away from the speakership? Or is he the only thing keeping the debilitated Newt Gingrich in power? The moderates in the GOP caucus (such as they are) find Armey too conservative and outspoken to serve as speaker, while the hard-liners say he's too ineffective a spokesman to replace Gingrich. Having already paid too high a political price for Gingrich's failings, Republican incumbents don't want another headache leading the party.

Hence GOP insiders are taking Armey down a few pegs. Arianna Huffington, bicoastal proprietress of the Republican political salon, took a break from her endless campaign against Gingrich to attack his heir apparent in one of her recent op-eds. Calling Armey "Newt Gingrich's best insurance policy," she accused him of duplicity in defending Gingrich when simply everyone knows, dahling, that the GOP needs new leadership. "It is high time," Huffington wrote, "for some young Turks to recognize that there are moments when appeasement is more destructive than war--and to strike."

Armey has been dismissed before--beginning with his first run for Congress in 1984. A geeky economics professor with a Midwestern accent challenging an entrenched Texas Democrat, Armey was given no chance of winning. Soon after capturing what would become a safe seat, he fathered one of the unlikeliest pieces of legislation to emerge from Congress: a bill creating an apolitical process for closing obsolete military bases. In 1992, he surprised fellow Republicans by challenging GOP Conference Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., a party insider and known conciliator, and took his job from him. In 1993, asked whether he would run for the minority whip post in the 104^th Congress, Armey told everyone (including an incredulous Dick Gephardt, in a limousine ride back from the White House) that he expected to be the next majority leader. He may have been grinning, but he wasn't joking.

But Armey's refusal to play the Washington game--to dine with media stars or golf with lobbyists--makes him an outsider. And he pays for this lack of political refinement, as the political oddsmakers portray him as a boorish ideologue and rhetorical bumbler prone to such "Armey Axioms" as "You can't put your finger on a problem when you've got it to the wind."

Damaging Armey further is his contemptuous relationship with the press. He rarely gives direct answers to unfriendly questions, although he's always good for a few bizarre Dan Rather Texasisms. Instead of giving artful non-answers to tough questions--a prerequisite talent for politicians--Armey usually lets fly a smart-aleck comment that gets him in trouble: Soon after becoming majority leader, he referred to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., as "Barney Fag." But after a shaky first few months in charge, Armey settled in as the House's relatively effective chief operating officer.

In recent weeks, a series of Republican legislative misplays has increased skepticism about whether Armey can be speaker. Most of the fault lies with Gingrich: The speaker has been considered politically dead for so long that most folks talk about him as a quaint memory. But, as Huffington noted, Armey has not acquitted himself well with his effort to keep up appearances.

Still, suppose Armey were passed over for the job. Consider the rest of the Republican leadership: