doc_text: In the closing stages of the election campaign President George Bush is trying to win votes by convincing the public that Mr Bill Clinton has made a hash of governing Arkansas.
  The state ranks at or near bottom on almost every social and economic criteria, says Mr Bush. '
  He would do for the United States what he's done to Arkansas.
  We do not want to be the lowest of the low.'
  Arkansas is still one of the poorest states in the US.
  It ranks 47th in terms of income, ahead of only Mississippi, Utah and West Virginia.
  Per capita incomes are three-quarters of the national average, roughly the same ratio as in 1979 when Mr Clinton was first elected governor.
  But while the scale of Mr Clinton's achievement in Arkansas is disputed, the implication that he has done nothing right in 12 years is unwarranted.
  Mr Clinton's first gubernatorial term was a failure.
  The youthful governor, then in his early 30s, charged in 'like a knight on a white horse to set the world straight' recalls Ms Diane Blair, a campaign official and old friend.
  '
  He tried to do too much, too soon and stepped on just about every economic toe in Arkansas.'
  Defeat in 1980 by a Republican was a seminal event in Mr Clinton's life.
  He returned to the governor's mansion in 1983 a wiser politician, committed to consensus, rather than controversy, and convinced that he could make progress only on one or two fronts at a time.
  The priorities he chose were economic development and educational reform.
  The statistics point to significant achievements in both fields.
  Mr Clinton has also been innovative in welfare reform, pioneering forms of 'work-fare' that make benefits conditional on acceptance of jobs or skill training.
  But his record since 1983 can be criticised in many other respects.
  For example, he has relied too heavily on an unfair tax system, paid too little attention to the environment, failed to pass civil rights legislation, and done less than some other states to reform a poorly functioning health-care system.
  In promoting industrial development Mr Clinton has struck a balance between free enterprise and government intervention.
  '
  I know Bill well enough to know he's fully committed to the free market,' says Mr Warren Stephens, president of Stephens Inc, a financial services group based in Little Rock.
  Mr Stephens is backing Mr Clinton in the presidential race, having always previously favoured Republicans.
  But while welcoming competition, Mr Clinton believes government must create an environment conducive to growth.
  His 'hands on' approach was tested in 1985 when International Paper threatened to close down its plants in Pine Bluff and Camden, mill towns in southern Arkansas.
  'Clinton went nuts,' says Mr John Brummett, political editor of the Arkansas Times.
  After hectic negotiations, he persuaded the company to expand its operations in Arkansas, but only after creating an unusually generous investment tax credit worth seven cents on the dollar.
  Mr Dave Harrington, the head of Arkansas's Industrial Development Commission, says the state's goal is to forge a partnership between the private and public sectors.
  'We're in trouble in this country because many people believe government and business should be separated.
  Elsewhere there is a unity of purpose, a complementarity.
  Mr Clinton has brought a lot of that to Arkansas.'
  The commission has targetted high-tech sectors, such as aerospace, in its bid to strengthen Arkansas's manufacturing base.
  Along with development agencies in other states it also energetically promotes inward investment, offering both tax incentives and special support services.
  'We guarantee to a company that we will tailor-train its workforce,' says Mr Harrington.
  'We do whatever it takes, including, for example, sending workers to Germany for training.'
  The Arkansas economy has revived during the Clinton years, creating jobs faster than the nation, especially in the past three years.
  Manufacturing employment has grown about 12 per cent since 1980 compared with a 9 per cent contraction nationally, and accounts for about 20 per cent of employment against 15 per cent nationally.
  Some 109 foreign companies, including big names such as British Aerospace and Dassault, the French aerospace group, have sizeable investments in the state, three times as many as in 1979.
  How much of this progress reflects active industrial policies is uncertain.
  Companies have also been attracted by Arkansas's low wages, weak unions and central location.
  During the Bush years, the state may have looked artificially strong because other regions experienced a hangover after the speculative excesses of the 1980s.
  In the longer-term, Arkansas hopes that educational reforms will pay economic dividends.
  In the late 1970s Arkansas schools were widely regarded as among the nation's worst.
  On some measures they still lag badly: Arkansas ranks 25th out of 28 states using the American College Test, a popular college admission exam.
  This is a few places worse than in 1979.
  Mr Burton Elliott, Arkansas's director of education, says the lack of improvement reflects a rise from 38 per cent to 51 per cent in the proportion of students attending college; many of the weaker pupils tested today would have been drop-outs a decade ago.
  But he readily concedes the benefits of many reforms are yet to be realised.
  'School improvement is a process, not an event; it takes time.'
  Mr Clinton's main schools legislation was passed in 1983, following a year of state-wide consultations led by his wife, Hillary.
  The measures included an increase in teachers' salaries, then the lowest in the US; tougher course requirements (many schools in rural areas had not previously offered advanced courses in maths, science or languages); a reduction in average class sizes; and regular testing of pupils to check progress.
  In the past two years, Mr Clinton has built on this foundation with a 'second wave' of reforms.
  He has encouraged more competition within the public sector by allowing students a free choice of schools and by making school districts publish 'report cards' measuring their relative performance.
  Teachers' salaries have again been increased, rising by 14 per cent in the past year. .
  Mr Mahlon Martin, head of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation in Little Rock, says Mr Clinton's real achievement has been to change attitudes.
  A state that previously paid little attention to schooling has been persuaded that 'the long-term solution to economic problems lies in a commitment to education'.
  In a poor region, money speaks louder than words.
  Mr Clinton has repeatedly persuaded a sceptical legislature to finance educational reforms by big increases in sales taxes.
  He has done so partly by taking on the teachers' unions.
  The 1 cent sales tax to finance the 1983 reforms was agreed only after Mr Clinton insisted on competence tests for teachers.
  Some 1,400 teachers lost their jobs, causing a rupture in relations between union leaders and Mr Clinton.
  While grudgingly acknowledging some achievements, Mr Clinton's critics in Arkansas find plenty to complain about. '
  He has been a tax-and-spend governor who believes in intervention,' says Mr Charles Venus, a Little Rock economic consultant with a free market bent.
  '
  Within six months or a year' of entering the White House, a President Clinton would be pressing for a national value-added tax to pay for social reforms, he warns.
  The figures, however, hardly suggest that Mr Clinton has created a Leviathan in Arkansas: the ratio of state and local taxes to personal incomes is still the fifth-lowest in the nation.
  Ms Meredith Oakley, a political columnist for the conservative Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is even more scathing.
  'I'd rate him only average as a chief executive.
  It's not his vision that I have problems with, it's his ability to translate it into something worthwhile.
  Millions of Americans are going to be disappointed.'
  Mr Brummett of the Arkansas Times, while better disposed towards Mr Clinton, echoes her theme.
  '
  The bottom line is that he could have got a lot more done if he had pushed harder.
  He has a tendency to compromise quickly.
  He is obsessed with trying to please people.'
  Critics cite two instances where Mr Clinton has fallen short.
  The governor has repeatedly relied on increases in sales taxes which are 'regressive' - in the sense that they inevitably absorb a larger proportion of the incomes of the poor than the rich.
  The excuse was that this was unavoidable because a three-quarters majority of the legislature is needed to pass an increase in income taxes.
  Mr Brummett and others, however, say Mr Clinton had the authority to insist on a fairer solution; he could at least have won exemptions for commodities such as food.
  The environment is a second example.
  '
  He went for jobs, jobs, jobs when he could have been truer to his instincts,' says one critic.
  Mr Clinton has been widely attacked for standing back while big companies, such as poultry producers, badly polluted Arkansas's rivers.
  No governor who has served as long as Mr Clinton can avoid mistakes or expect to be free of controversy.
  But what general conclusions for a Clinton presidency can be drawn from his Arkansas record?
  His belief in education as a vehicle for economic and social advance is hard to question.
  If elected, he would be certain to use the power of the presidency to promote this cause.
  Perhaps more surprising, he has just as solid a record in promoting business; he differs with many conservatives only in instinctively rejecting a laissez-faire approach.
  Rightly or wrongly, he is likely to regard his Arkansas record as evidence that active industrial policies can indeed 'grow manufacturing jobs'.
  The biggest doubt lies over his toughness: will he have the determination to overcome the formidable interest group pressure blocking reform in Washington?
  One reason for optimism is Mr Clinton's remarkable ability to bridge social and economic gaps: it is striking, for example, that he wins 90 per cent of the vote in the poorest regions of Arkansas while also attracting enthusiastic support from the state's elite business leaders.
  If Mr Clinton wins this election, the White House will be occupied by a pragmatic moderate with a talent for building diverse coalitions.
  After the ideological infighting of the past decade this could prove a recipe for constructive change.
summary_text: Republican George Bush claims Clinton has governed poorly in Arkansas.
  This article is an assessment of Clinton's governorship.
  Arkansas still ranks number 47 in income in the United States.
  Per capita income has not changed.
  His first term was a failure.
  He stepped on too many toes, charged in "like a knight on a white horse," wanting to change everything.
  His term out of office matured him.
  Real progress came in the areas of education and economic development, with some inroads into welfare reform.
  Mr. Clinton failed to make improvements in the areas of the environment, civil rights or health care.