NEWT'S COOKIE MONSTER

By ADAM COHEN/ATLANTA

When Democrat Michael Coles announced for Congress against Newt Gingrich, the audience was filled with friends, supporters and a hostile, blue-furred Cookie Monster. The costume, worn by a Gingrich backer, was a dig at Coles' background. He is the self-made multimillionaire founder of the 400-store Great American Cookie Co. But the fact that Newt supporters not only showed up to heckle Coles but actually dressed for the occasion may indicate something else--anxiety that come November this spend-whatever-it-takes cookie tycoon could gobble up their man.

Gingrich's popularity has ebbed since the heady early days of the Contract with America. His 33% approval rating in a May TIME/CNN poll of U.S. voters was only 9 points higher than Nixon's was before he resigned the presidency. It is an anti-Newt backlash that, Georgia Democrats believe, has occurred back home as well. While a February poll by the Gingrich campaign indicated that 75% of likely voters in his district think the Speaker deserves re-election, the Coles operation claims that in its own surveys 47% of Gingrich constituents say he is not performing well in the job.

Still, Georgia's Sixth Congressional District, which cuts across some of Atlanta's most affluent suburbs, is not exactly Democratic territory. It is one of the wealthiest congressional districts in the country (its $47,000 median household income ranks 23rd of 435 districts) and strongly Republican (56% of voters in the Sixth backed George Bush in 1992). But centrist Democrats like Georgia Governor Zell Miller and Senator Sam Nunn have also run strongly in the Sixth, and Democrats insist that Gingrich's abrasive personality is turning off voters across the board. Says Steve Anthony, executive director of the Democratic Party of Georgia: "If we can show the voters that our candidate fits the profile they want but with a more positive demeanor, they will go with him."

Coles, in fact, has a profile that could have been lifted directly from the entrepreneurial lore of GOPAC, the Gingrich-inspired fund-raising operation. Coles and a partner began business in 1977 with $8,000 in start-up cash, a location at the Atlanta area's Perimeter Mall and so little cookie-baking smarts that his first batch burned and the fire department showed up. Two decades later, his company operates in 38 states and has annual sales of about $100 million. He has pushed hard since he was eight, when a fire at his father's rag-recycling business forced the family into bankruptcy. Coles did yard work in the neighborhood to bring in money, eventually hiring others in his enterprise. He held two jobs in high school and never attended college. At 31, he founded a clothing company and then turned to cookies.

Coles has also triumphed over physical adversity. After a near fatal motorcycle accident in 1977, doctors told him he would never walk again unaided. But Coles struggled back and is today a champion bicyclist; he once set a Southern transcontinental record for his 11-day trek from Savannah, Georgia, to San Diego. Says Coles campaign manager Kate Head: "This is a guy who believes in the American Dream."

The race so far has been surprisingly nonideological. Coles has attempted to underscore the public perception of Gingrich as self-consumed. "We can't afford to keep sending to Washington a Congressman who believes it is more important to hear his own voice than it is to hear the voice of the people," he says. But he also has emphasized issues on which he hopes to outdo Gingrich at his own game, arguing that he will work harder for a balanced budget and be tougher on crime. The candidates have been blunt about their differences on one subject: Coles' money. Gingrich, who has in the past spent freely and said there should be more money in politics, told a campaign kickoff rally that Coles was trying to buy his seat by spending $3 million of his own money. Coles responded that Gingrich had made up the figure, although Head concedes that her candidate "has said we are not going to run out of money." (Coles must survive a July primary against a lesser-known Democrat, computer entrepreneur Cliff Oxford; the betting is that Coles will prevail.)

Even with a self-supplied war chest, defeating Gingrich will not be easy. Gingrich's margin in the Republican primary in 1992 was close--he won by a mere 980 votes. But in the Republican sweep in 1994, he racked up 64% of the vote. This time he plans to spend $3 million to get re-elected, financed by a campaign organization, Friends of Newt Gingrich, that solicits donations from across the U.S. "I think Newt's percentage of the vote will go down, but I don't think he is going to lose," says Merle Black, a political-science professor at Emory University. Gingrich's fate could depend in part on how the investigations into his ethical controversies play out in the district and on how strong Bob Dole's presidential coattails turn out to be in November. But even if Gingrich prevails, the Democrats can rejoice in one outcome: Coles and his money will keep Gingrich pinned down in his district rather than traveling across the country to raise money and votes for his Republican troops. In that sense, the race in the Sixth is the place to watch the next chapter in the Revolution.