The President would benefit in the 1996campaign if a Democrat is governing the state, with 25 electoral votes.

Democrats governed their petri dish as they always govern.

But there are several overlooked surprises and fresh patterns that carry important clues as to how Republicans and Democrats might govern and how the parties might position themselves.

But in fact it was about whether the Democrats can govern, given the dominant role in both the White House and Congress that they were awarded last November.

Republican leaders said that the impasse demonstrated that the Democrats could not govern effectively.

Until 1990 a Democrat had governed Connecticut for 32 of the previous 36 years.

The job has carried with it the prime ministership, as the Liberal Democrats have governed Japan without interruption since the end of American postwar occupation.

The danger is that instead of returning to power as spirited reform liberals, the Democrats would govern as a devious, dispirited version of their old selves.

But Clinton's active presence and, more important, his concept of how Democrats should govern remain at the party's vital center.

Then, even the reddest of states will be tinged with a little purple, and a Democrat could actually govern in a less hostile atmosphere.