1.   Asked about the historical parallel this week, one of the more conservative freshmen, Rep. Mark E. Souder of Indiana, leaped on the idea.

2.   Brownback has been one of the most prominent of the conservative freshmen in the Republican Congress.

3.   But he faced opposition from Baker and conservative freshman Republicans fired with zeal for deregulation.

4.   But much of this puts him at odds with the hard-hitting conservative freshmen Republican congressmen he supposedly leads.

5.   Driving the re-positioning of other moderates is the prominence of the hard-charging conservative freshmen in Congress and their mentor, Gingrich.

6.   Rep. Mike Pence, a conservative freshman Republican from east-central Indiana, comes from a district with no more than a handful of Jews.

7.   Taking their lead from Newt Gingrich, the conservative freshmen came to Washington with the arts endowment on their hit list.

8.   Those dates, however, were too far in the future for many of the lawmakers, especially the conservative freshman class.