"Legislation is always supposed to come from Congress anyway," Edwards says. "The Republicans are going to determine what is going to be considered, which will be Republican bills generated by Republican members of Congress."

In order for Clinton to succeed and forge workable relationships with Congress, he will need to collaborate with Republicans and form bipartisan coalitions--something which, so far, he has been reluctant to do.

"Bill Clinton is going to have to work with moderate Republicans and forge coalitions across party lines," King says. "He doesn't have the names of moderate Republicans in his rolodex."

Relations between the executive branch and Congress over the next two years are "going to be terrible," predicts Markham Professor of Government H. Douglas Price.

"Once you have a Republican majority, I don't see how he'll get anything through," Price says. "The Republicans running things don't believe in bipartisanship."

One of the consequences of a divided government is gridlock. In 1948, President Harry Truman ran by campaigning against the "do nothing" Congress and prevailed. Given the Republican filibusters at the end of the 103rd Congress, Clinton could adopt a similar strategy and run against the "do nothing" 104th Congress.

But Clinton ran as an activist President and appears unlikely to abandon his agenda. Instead, he will need to radically reform the way he looks at issues.

"It's hard to know if you can increase gridlock," Edwards says. "I think gridlock is merely the people's representatives stopping unpopular legislation from being passed."

But prospects for bipartisanship in the Clinton administration were dealt a serious blow last night, when David Gergen, a senior adviser who previously worked in Republican administrations, offered his resignation, complaining that the administration was not willing to work with Republicans.

Despite the mid-term election results, Clinton still has a chance to win in 1996. If he emerges from the election as an energized consensus-builder, he may be able to rise above the partisan fray. And the burden is now on the Republicans--with a majority in both houses--to legislate the change that the public demands. "There's a lot of time to rewrite history," King says.