Now that the dust has cleared on the 2006 elections, Gov. Linda Lingle has a job to do:

Call Bill Clinton.

What?

Well, there are few people around better equipped to talk about how the chief of state from one party deals with an energized and feisty Legislature controlled by the other.

That's certainly the situation facing Lingle, coming off a powerful re-election win and facing a Legislature that is more firmly in Democratic hands than before.

Lingle has made it clear she intends to work with, not against, the Legislature in the next couple of years. But Democrats are already making noises about being, if not exactly confrontational, then at least more aggressive.

There is a way through this, and Clinton is a good example.

In 1994, the Republicans — inspired by a brainy ideologue by the name of Newt Gingrich — took over Congress for the first time in decades. They had a specific agenda in mind, involving lower taxes, welfare reform, trade reform, balancing the budget and so forth.

This wasn't precisely the agenda Clinton and his team (including Hillary) had in mind. They were looking at healthcare reform, liberalizing policies about gays in the military and a variety of issues that would turn out to be a very hard sell on the national stage.

But when Clinton found himself facing a Republican Congress, he didn't immediately pick a fight. Instead, he triangulated, looking for ways to make, or remake, Republican issues in his own terms. He embraced a version of welfare reform, pushed ahead on trade liberalization, much to the despair of liberals and trade union types, and famously declared that big government, as we know it, is over.

He did have one famous confrontation with the Republicans over the budget, which led to a brief but headline-grabbing shutdown of the federal government for several weeks. Clinton won that one because, as Gingrich would say later, he managed to put the onus on the Republican Congress for the shutdown. They had the power, so they got blamed for the deed.

Lingle might wish to look at how Clinton handled the GOP Congress as she moves forward with the Democrats in the state Legislature. And local Democrats should recognize, as Gingrich did, that they have the ultimate power to dispose and will likely suffer the PR blame if gridlock emerges.

So, for Lingle, the approach might be to carefully study what the Democrats want and what they are pushing, and then put her own gubernatorial spin on the idea. There are plenty of areas where this could work, including homelessness, economic development, disaster planning and more.

And here's the political reality: Lingle now has four years in office and no election ahead of her, at least at the state level. Her next campaign, if she chooses, likely will be for federal office.

Meanwhile, a majority of the Democrats in the Legislature will have to face the electorate in just two years.

If the governor takes the best of their ideas and puts her own spin on them, Democratic legislators will have little choice but to go along.

It's time to ring up Bill Clinton to get a little advice on the details.

Reach Jerry Burris at jburris@honoluluadvertiser.com.