Gingrich spokeswoman Christina Martin delivered the somber news: "At the request of the White House, the fast-track vote has been postponed until sometime over the weekend." Friday and possibly Saturday will find Clinton back on the free-trade wagon, ringing his bell and passing out pork to any congressman willing to see the light.
Bill Gates has even pitched in with a full-page ad in Friday's Washington Post that calls fast-track authority "a vote to affirm the essential strength and vitality of the American economy."
The President insists he's close. And there are a handful of holdout Republicans ready to get aboard if Clinton will scratch their backs on some overseas abortion issues.
But it's the pro-labor, anti-NAFTA Democrats that refuse to crack, a defiant group that could sink the measure and that, come 2000, could make the Republican Party look positively united by comparison.