Jon Ralston on Barbara Buckley, who will become the most powerful woman in Nevada state politics

Sunday, Nov. 19, 2006 | 7:18 a.m.

Amid the recriminations over the unsuccessful attempt by Dina Titus to become the state's first female governor, and obscured by the mewling about sexism in the political world, is the reality that the most powerful woman ever to alight in Carson City may arrive early next year.

There have been influential females before. But few - if any - possess the rare mixture of talents of Speaker-in-Waiting Barbara Buckley . And neither, it needs to be emphasized, have most men who have been state power brokers.

Buckley, unlike anyone in the capital save Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, has all the tools. All the requisite adjectives apply: She is smart, tough and ruthless.

But there's more: Buckley plays chess, not checkers. She uses lobbyists, doesn't let them use her. And she engenders, among lawmakers and lobbyists alike, the one emotion that successful leaders must evoke: fear.

Buckley scares people. It's one thing in politics to bluster and hector and threaten in the public square. But it's quite another to have a goal in mind, say what you need to say publicly, make it clear privately what you really want and then ensure there are consequences if you don't succeed.

I recall a key bill sought by very powerful special interests during the last session. Lobbyists had gathered the votes in the Assembly and thought they could count to the magic 22. So one of the advocates went into then-Majority Leader Buckley's office and informed her they had the votes and would run over her if they had to. Buckley, who opposed the bill, smiled as she seethed and informed the lobbyist that only one vote really counted and the bill would never see the light of day. It never did.

One insider summed up Buckley's attributes after the 2005 session in answering a survey that named her, along with Raggio, as the Gang of 63's finest: "She has the best, (most) intelligent and strategic mind in the building with the strong core values to go with it. She's able to work with diverse interests but can be tougher than Raggio when needed. And she knows when it's needed."

Raggio may indeed remain the master of legislative legerdemain, able to manipulate the process as no other person can. (Right now, he is reconfiguring committees to diminish the Democrats' newfound strength gained by picking up a seat.) But Buckley, after a dozen years of on-the-job training, is not far from his equal and she is the kind of rival Raggio has never encountered.

Her predecessors, Joe Dini and Richard Perkins, were much like Raggio: Not so much ideologically driven as process driven.

Raggio and Dini were more concerned about feasting on pork than passing legislation.

Buckley is that rarity, perhaps the most skillful since the late Ways and Means Chairman Marvin Sedway, in using politics to achieve policy goals. Whether it's health care or education, Buckley has an agenda and she has been able to impose her will in key areas by engaging in the kind of horse-trading and hostage-holding that Raggio and Dini perfected.

The question that faced Buckley as a freshman in 1995 was whether she would be marginalized as a wild-eyed liberal - she had worked and still toils in her real life as an advocate for the disenfranchised - or whether she would learn to play the game and be effective. The answer is now evident.

Buckley also is no Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker-elect who suffered a humiliating defeat by anointing a majority leader and then having her caucus reject him. Buckley gets to choose her own lieutenant - she appointed John Oceguera, but cleverly inserted the ambitious Marcus Conklin as the third in command so her new majority leader would know she has a fallback appointment if he doesn't measure up. Positively Raggioesque.

Buckley also was chosen as one of the Legislature's best committee bosses (Commerce) in last year's post-session survey. But marshaling a handful of committee members is much different than holding together a potentially rambunctious Gang of 27. If she can do so, with a new governor coming into office damaged by a nightmarish campaign denouement and Raggio wily as ever but with less margin for error, Buckley may show that she is a woman among boys.