The governors all have the same budget concerns, like how to fund education and reform Medicaid. They all face the same constraints on what they can and can't do. They all face potentially recalcitrant legislatures.

Sitting down with the other governors "you realize we are governors of all the people regardless of political stripe," said Huntsman, who said he is building relationships with the other governors that could help Utah down the road.

Leavitt used the National Governors Association (he eventually became its chairman) to promulgate a national agenda that included welfare reform, his environmental doctrine called Enlibra and other issues that affected the states.

Huntsman doesn't see himself following the same course "beyond the couple of (NGA) meetings a year."

Nor does he plan to spend a lot of time in Washington, D.C. Instead, he plans to rely on the Utah congressional delegation to represent Utah interests there.

"Of course, I will do whatever needs to be done," he said of the prospects of personally lobbying officials in the nation's capital.

And he already is off to a fast start in that regard.

Before driving several hours from Washington, D.C., to West Virginia, Huntsman met with Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, soon to become the Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate, and he met with top officials at the Department of Interior to talk about Western land issues.

"And I went to the EPA to meet with the Utah mafia," he joked, referring to the many Utahns in high-ranking positions under Leavitt's administration there.

Huntsman seemed eager to get back to Utah and forge ahead on the transition and to set a legislative agenda that will be difficult considering he will only have been governor for about two weeks before the Legislature convenes.

He dismissed talk of "training" and kept shifting the discussion back to his policy priorities, things like tax reform and resolving land disputes.

He already has talked with new legislative leaders about realistic possibilities for Huntsman's first legislative session.

"I know we have to get these priorities off the ground in the first six months," he said. "That's our honeymoon period."

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E-mail: spang@desnews.com