Describing the new president's approach, aides said today that Mr. Bush intended to reach beyond his party and beyond the conservative Democrats known for bucking their leaders.

Representative Williams is a liberal Democrat known for defending occupational-safety standards and other protections of workers and families.

The alternative budget was developed by a group of conservative Democrats known as the Coalition.

All of which leaves Mrs. Lowey in a not-unpleasant limbo, as a well-liked moderately liberal Democrat, barely known statewide, who is enjoying the attention.

But across the net, computer-literate Democrats known as Digitals are vowing to build an "on-line army" of 100,000 volunteers, lean and hungry and uplinked for 1996.

With strong popular support and the congressional backing of a bloc of southern Democrats known as "boll weevils," Reagan's economic package sailed through Congress in 1981.

Mr. Kilpatrick, 30, a Democrat known for aggressive fund-raising, is the state's first black House minority leader.

Already he is prompting comparisons to another Democrat known for feeling people's pain: Mr. Clinton.

The House is the most striking example, with conservative Democrats known as "the coalition" trying to exercise their influence, even as liberals argue for a return to core principles.

Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat known for his bare-knuckles campaign style, broadcast the first attack advertisement of his re-election campaign today.