Everybody was down the hall, listening to Condoleezza Rice.

But millions of Americans who do, or will, depend on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will long be affected by what Leavitt does. So will the taxpayers who fund those programs and, in the case of Medicaid, the states that carry much of the cost.

The reason to be optimistic is the same reason that Leavitt is expected to sail to confirmation. Though Leavitt is a good Republican and loyal servant of the president, he is also a longtime Utah governor who has shown both an eagerness and an ability to try new ways of accomplishing a program's aims without busting its budget.

In Utah, where Leavitt was governor for more than 10 years, that meant convincing the very department he will now lead to grant waivers to Medicaid rules that allowed the state to spend its limited money on providing basic care to more people and other services to none. Hardly a perfect solution, but just the sort of thing that more states will consider if the Bush administration goes ahead with reported plans to cut federal Medicaid spending while allowing states more flexibility in how they spend that money.

The fact that Leavitt's been on the other side of that divide, and even served as a leading spokesman for governors who opposed turning Medicaid into a flat block-grant program, suggests that he will be unlikely to issue idle commands from his high position and expect everybody down below to just live with it.

What inspires less confidence about Leavitt's latest career move, after little more than a year running the Environmental Protection Agency, were his suggestions Tuesday that the problems facing his giant bureaucracy, which encompasses the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration as well as its other agencies, are matters of budget and “branding” rather than deeply divisive questions about the responsibility of government and the trustworthiness of the free market when it comes to everything from drug pricing to food inspections.

Leavitt even refused to pick up the challenge of his predecessor, and fellow former governor, Tommy Thompson, in calling for the power to dicker down the prices Medicare and Medicaid pay for prescription drugs.

But a new man in a new job in an administration celebrating its re-inauguration might be expected to paint a rosy picture.

What will count is less what Leavitt said to the Senate this week, but what he says to President Bush over the next four years. And whether Bush pays note.