To legislators and other close observers of state government, the speech was a brief recapitulation of Huntsman's campaign: A focus on economic development and education, a promised ban on hotter classifications of nuclear waste, a pledge to be a humble custodian of the public's trust and to face the future unafraid.

To those who may have just tuned in, it probably proved to be a pleasing, if not altogether inspiring, meet and greet with their new chief executive.

With the state's current Capitol building in deliberate disarray for renovation, Huntsman traveled to Utah's territorial statehouse in Fillmore for his first annual message. The speech was thus suitably long on historical references regarding the state, the Huntsman family and the extended association of the two.

The governor's view of the state's future, and of his own, was hopeful but, again, included little that Huntsman hasn't been offering for months. Except, perhaps, for the useful factoid that a whole $5.5 million for educational supplies very quickly boils down to a mere $300 per elementary classroom.

As noted in his budget message last week, Huntsman would make wise use of a state treasury made more flush by a recovering economy, avoiding the destabilizing effects of either tax cuts or tax hikes while giving public employees a long-overdue raise.

Huntsman pledged to put more money into education, including higher salaries for beginning teachers, and transportation, including the long-stalled Legacy Highway and the mass transit component that should have been its companion all along. He would also restore dental and vision benefits to Medicaid and start to rebuild the state's savings account.

Huntsman also proposed addressing the state's obsolete - and older than its governor - tax structure. But, as before, he offered no specifics other than a hope to phase out the corporate income tax.

On the one point where the governor could have really taken action himself - a ban on class B and C nuclear wastes - Huntsman disappointingly passed the ball to the Legislature to formally ban such material, something legislators have so far declined to do.

In his inaugural and elsewhere, Huntsman pledged that he would expend whatever political capital he held in the service of Utah. He didn't mention that Tuesday. He didn't spend any of that capital, either.

But there's a long legislative session ahead.

Stay tuned.