"He said he'd only settle for a 4.5 percent increase" in the Weighted Pupil Unit, said Curtis. The WPU is the basic public education funding formula, and the GOP House caucus had taken a position to keep it at a 3.5 percent increase — a position they came off of after the new $100 million in revenue estimates came in.

Huntsman got his 4.5 percent WPU hike.

Anyway, there are always a few surprises each session.

And I figured that some kind of tuition tax credit bill would pass this year. The big anti-tax-credit stick was always Leavitt and then, last year, Walker, two governors who didn't want them.

Huntsman favors tax credits.

But in the end, who knows how hard he really pushed for tax credits? Or did he decide to sit that fight out and let a new Legislature take that one alone this year?

I also thought Huntsman would get his phased-in repeal of the 5 percent corporate income tax. He didn't.

A Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll showed that 62 percent of Utahns opposed phasing out the tax — a repeal that by 2012 would be costing Utah public schools more than $200 million a year.

The House, with 21 Republicans joining with 19 Democrats, took the phase-out out of a bill Huntsman favored. And while the Senate passed its own version of the repeal, it was never again debated in the House.

Maybe Huntsman figured that he'd gotten by far most of what he wanted out of the 2005 Legislature.

Maybe he decided not to push that amazing run of luck he's seen the last year.

Maybe he would take a year, throw the corporate tax repeal in with a huge tax reform task force and give more time to "educate" Utahns on how wise it is to give such an economic development "tool."

The 2005 Legislature was a success for Valentine, Curtis and other lawmakers, in part because of all the new money that flowed into it.

And while he was not very visible during the session itself, my guess is that now Huntsman will be seen more and more — and taking some of the credit for the success of the past 45 days.

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Deseret Morning News political editor Bob Bernick Jr. may be reached by e-mail at bbjr@desnews.com