A battered President Clinton promises to answer the voters' call after accepting "my share of the blame" for the Democrats' debacle Tuesday.
"We got the message," he said in a post-election news conference Wednesday.
He also sent a message to congressional Republicans who now will control the legislative agenda:
"There's a lot we can work together on that will be consistent with my convictions."
He points to an international trade agreement, welfare reform and a line-item veto.
And the new GOP leaders are open to bipartisanship - to some degree:
-- "Maybe we can do some business," says Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, back as majority leader after an 8-year hiatus.
-- "The country voted for us" so the GOP agenda will come first, says Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, although there will be areas of cooperation.
But the incoming speaker, basking in his glory Wednesday, didn't stop what he was doing to take Clinton's phone call. Gingrich called back - an hour and a half later, The New York Times reports today.
Clinton opposes Republican promises to roll back gun-control laws and add new restrictions to legal abortions.
And he says Republicans have to come up with a way to pay for items like more defense spending and a $500-per-child income tax cut.
Clinton, tired from a night of watching prominent supporters fall to GOP challengers, still suggests his biggest failure was that voters didn't know his accomplishments.
"I don't think they voted for a reversal," he says.
Clinton calls questions on his chances for re-election in 1996 premature. Still, political aides already are scouring exit polls for clues to his revival.
But as results rolled in, the extent of the GOP win grew:
-- No Republican incumbent was defeated in any House, Senate or gubernatorial race. More than 50 House seats were shifting to the GOP.
-- House Speaker Thomas Foley, D-Wash., is the first sitting speaker to lose since 1860.
-- Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, calling the GOP "the party of hope for America," switched sides after 16 years as a congressional Democrat.
Clinton will be the first Democratic president since Harry Truman to face a solidly Republican Congress.
An estimated 75 million voters cast ballots, 38.7% of adults 18 and over. That's up 2.2% from the last two midterm elections in 1990 and 1986, which had 36.5% turnout.
