President Clinton's top political advisers promised nervous state Democratic leaders Friday the White House has learned from its mistakes and is ready to be far more aggressive in promoting the administration's agenda.

It was a welcome message to the state party leaders, who said their worries have been assuaged in recent days by Clinton victories, however narrow, but acknowledged jitters back home among the voters who elected Clinton last year."You get the sense that things are beginning to turn around," Democratic National Chairman David Wilhelm told reporters at the summer meeting of the Association of State Democratic Chairs.

For Wilhelm, it was his first meeting with the state party leaders and the party's executive committee since he took the DNC post early this year.

Although they were reluctant to criticize Clinton and his political operation publicly, several chairmen said in private conversations that missteps by the White House and the party had allowed Republicans to dominate the budget debate and portray Clinton's program as tax-and-spend, liberal Democratic policy.

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With critical gubernatorial and congressional races next year, including 34 Senate races at a time Democrats hold a fragile 56-44 majority, the chairmen said Clinton needed to rebound by the end of this year to avoid hurting Democratic candidates next year.

As part of their effort to be better cheerleaders for the administration, the state Democratic leaders predicted Clinton would engineer the needed comeback.

"I've known Bill Clinton for so long and seen him go through so many trials and tribulations that I'm not worried at all," said James Brady, the Louisiana Democratic chairman and president of the chairs group.

The meeting in Albuquerque opened just hours after Vice President Al Gore broke a tie to get Clinton's economic program through the Senate. Wilhelm and others predicted that and other legislative victories would gradually erase public fears that Clinton was incapable of delivering his promised changes.

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