Portray your Republican opponent as a Gingrich ally and an extremist out of step with the state's moderate tradition.

When Mrs. Clinton ran in 2000, she used Mr. Gingrich as her whipping boy, accusing her rival, Rick A. Lazio, of having been a Gingrich ally.

"I don't think we can pass a clean-debt limit," Representative Robert S. Walker of Pennsylvania, a longtime Gingrich ally, said today.

Those backers include Speaker Newt Gingrich; Mr. Norquist, a Gingrich ally, and J. Patrick Rooney, an Indianapolis insurance magnate who has donated $49,000 to support the referendum.

In April 1989, Representative Robert S. Walker of Pennsylvania, a close Gingrich ally, said Mr. Wright "ought to step aside" until the case was finished.

Speaker Newt Gingrich, under investigation after being accused of giving false information to the House ethics committee, did make an erroneous statement, but it was his lawyer's fault, Representative John Linder of Georgia, a close Gingrich ally, said today.

In fact, although Mr. Forbes was an early Gingrich ally, he was also the first Republican congressman to risk publicly breaking with Speaker Gingrich, in an early failed coup.

Grover Norquist, a longtime Gingrich ally, said the Georgia Republican was increasingly optimistic he would prevail.

A Gingrich ally grumbles: "He's only a political animal in the sense that any senior Washington bureaucrat is, not in the sense that someone needs to be to aspire to elected office."

"There are buckets full of every pond that Newt can dip into and scoop out support," said Rich Galen, a Gingrich ally who now heads Gopac, which Mr. Gingrich once ran.