Diplomacy Huntsman's guiding light

"You can continue to go to the public on some of these things or you can bore down with those who are immediately responsible for decisionmaking legislatively," he said. "And you can work through your differences without causing the oftentimes undue pain of embarrassment through a public message."

He said he coming from a government and business background, and he's more comfortable with the latter approach. It worked well enough for him, the governor said, to earn the administration a grade of "a good B-plus" this session.

"I was elected to follow through on the issue that was at the heart and soul of my campaign, fortifying the state's economic base to make sure we can pay the bills," Huntsman said. "I feel good about that."

Even though the public saw less of the governor — and heard less about his agenda than is usual the governor's chief of staff, Jason Chaffetz, said what matters is that Huntsman was able to push though much of what he wanted.

"Jon Huntsman is very much a diplomat, and that diplomacy paid off big for the governor's office," Chaffetz said. "As we look at our agenda, we got most everything that we were hoping for."

Chaffetz attributed the success of his boss "to the good working relationship we had one-on-one between the governor and the individual legislators."

The chief of staff said lawmakers "hopefully very much appreciated the (way) that we worked with them. We weren't out there to embarrass them or make an example of a particular issue in a very public way."

Lawmakers did seem to like his approach.

The Senate budget chairman, Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, had nothing but praise for the freshman governor's performance this session.

"This is a great lesson in leadership," Hillyard said. "Gov. Huntsman is showing that you get more flies with honey than with vinegar."

House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, said the governor recognized he was going to have to work with lawmakers again. "Maybe a more aggressive style would have been more effective this session. I don't know," Curtis said. "But not in the long run."

The speaker said he appreciated the governor's willingness to work with lawmakers, especially without resorting to what his called a "hard-driving, caustic" style. "That's been extremely refreshing."

Huntsman's results, however, were mixed. The governor did get money for economic development, including $18 million for tourism promotion that Chaffetz labeled "a home run for us," as well as the increase in public education funding and the pay raises for state employees.

But by late evening Wednesday, he still hadn't received some of the items on his wish list, including the phase-out of corporate income tax or the two-term limit he wanted for governors.

"We'll be back," Huntsman said.

He's already announced he'll call lawmakers back into special session on April 20, to deal with President Bush's No Child Left Behind initiative. The governor could add other issues to the agenda.

The special session is the product of Huntsman's effort to negotiate a settlement between the federal government and the state, which stands to lose federal funding if it doesn't comply with the requirements of the initiative.

Before he calls lawmakers back, though, he'll have to decide whether any bills they passed this session should be vetoed. Not surprisingly, Huntsman wasn't ready to talk specifics Wednesday.

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