Jon Ralston explains that what state lawmakers say they did and what they actually accomplished aren’t always the same thing

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 | 7:20 a.m.

It was a big victory for little things. But it was a victory for all, which is what really mattered.

This is the way most legislative budget fights end, not over major policy issues but over pennies, with the overwhelming imperative to go home obliterating any high hopes of the Legislature's beginning. But most pressing as the end nears is the chance for a bipartisan photo op, to offer insincere blandishments to the opposition, to lavish public praise dissonant with the private cursing - the play's the thing!

Gov. Jim Gibbons managed to climb most of his molehills to die for and held onto his no new taxes pledge - perhaps his approval rating can scale its molehill, too. Legislative Democrats pumped some extra money into lower education and all-day kindergarten will be more widespread - perhaps they can crow about how Nevada moved from 50th in per-pupil spending to, if we are lucky, 49th. And legislative Republicans successfully kept that payroll tax from rising a crippling .02 percent, thus showing their business bona fides to their base - now if they can just explain how that was worth holding up the session.

Much blood was spilled to get to Tuesday's happy news conference, where all wounds were forgotten as the governor and legislative leaders smiled for the cameras. It was almost as if the preceding event at the Capitol - a friendly Gibbons unveiling the official portrait of his unfriendly predecessor, Kenny Guinn - was an omen. The battle is over, the carnage is done, the result is just - or it's just over.

This is Carson City, not Gettysburg. Nevadans will little note, nor long remember what was said Tuesday, and they will easily forget what was done in the capital during the past four months. Sessions always end ugly but are soon forgotten, including by the same folks who gathered to metaphorically hold hands.

How long will it be before Democratic and Republican legislators start inventorying what parts of the deal announced Tuesday can be used against the opposition? How long before Gibbons declares victory for his agenda and contrasts his performance with that of the Legislature? Answers: soon and sooner.

The governor's slate is the cleanest. He promised to do very little - and he delivered.

But, his calculation is, that's what his base wanted him to do, the one-third of the electorate or so that approves of him, that is. He did not raise taxes, he lowered taxes on business and he enacted empowerment schools (albeit at a pittance of what he proposed).

Those who support Gibbons think those who govern least govern best. And the governor surely did not govern. He stumbled, he dithered and then he ceded to a small band of conservatives led by his former opponent, state Sen. Bob Beers.

Unlike Guinn, who fought Beers' agenda tooth and nail, Gibbons was happy to be guided to the path of righteousness by Shadow Gov. Beers. If Beers, who controlled as many or more voters in the Senate caucus as Majority Leader Bill Raggio, isn't the next GOP upper house boss, I don't know who will be. He's earned it.

Legislative Democrats, smelling blood early in the session with all of the Gibbons missteps, barely scratched the governor in the end. They can claim victory by getting more money into lower education than the Republicans wanted to give. But they know that the win was slight, that they have hundreds of millions to go before they get to where they want to be - but generally are afraid to actually say they want to be.

To some extent, Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley had to be realistic. The governor has his veto and the Republicans could block any major education initiative in the Senate. So any victory she could achieve was going to be incremental, and may be until a Democratic governor is elected.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus' keen ear for political rhetoric showed this week as she pummeled the governor in the last few days for holding education hostage while claiming to put Education First (his initiative to ensure the education budget was considered first). Indeed, Gibbons did hold the budget hostage over a minuscule bump in the state's minuscule payroll tax - the smallest of small things.

But for just a moment Tuesday, everyone was a winner and could boast about having accomplished some big things. Alas, for them, and more importantly, for what they did not do, it will all be forgotten in a very, very short time.