1.   And a big, contentious bill like the tobacco measure can conceivably pass even if the majority leadership is opposed.

2.   But Johnson did not try to convert those numbers into the majority leadership.

3.   But the majority leadership seldom falls into the same trap twice.

4.   Democrats in the House, and the majority leadership in the Senate, were not an accommodating group, either.

5.   Dole will find himself in the glare of the campaign spotlight without the mantle of the majority leadership and without the comforting familiarity of the Senate to retreat to.

6.   The whip is the third highest position within the House majority leadership.

7.   Republican dissenters held firm against a party commitment to missile defenses, giving the majority leadership an unexpected lesson in the limits of its newly gained power.

8.   The majority leadership of both houses of Congress increasingly find themselves in the anomalous position of trying to suppress majority will.