Voters gave Gov. Linda Lingle and Democrats in the state Legislature more political leverage in Tuesday's elections, and while they have said they will try to work together, neither side is likely to sacrifice much of their policy agendas to compromise next session.

The Republican governor and Democratic leaders likely will continue to intersect on issues such as affordable housing and alternative energy, but they have more fundamental disagreements on public education and tax relief that may not be smoothed over in the glow of cooperation.

There is also some dispute over the exact message voters have been sending. Do they want Lingle and the Democrats to try to solve the state's problems together? Or do they prefer the Democrats on policy but want Lingle to act as a check on any extremes?

Dan Boylan, a history professor at the University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu, said some political analysts may have been misreading Lingle's popularity as a trend that the state is moving closer to the center politically. Her victories, as some Democrats have long claimed, might be the result of voter disgust with Democratic campaign-finance scandals in 2002 and her record of governing as a moderate during a strong economy this year.

"We've over-analyzed this," Boylan said. "I think one of the messages this year is that the Democrats are much stronger than anyone has been saying."

Lingle, speaking to reporters yesterday at her first news conference since winning a second term, said she would talk with House and Senate leaders before the session about whether an education-reform law passed in 2004 is working or should be amended. The law created a new student spending formula, but its implementation has been delayed after some educators complained it would take too much money from small and rural schools.

The governor likely will again propose moving more education spending into the classroom and a pilot project on local school boards. She cited the education-reform law as an example of what she said can happen when the administration and Legislature do not collaborate.

"Nothing about it was bipartisan," she said. "They went behind closed doors and they came up with a plan, and the plan has never worked since then, and it's not working now."

State Rep. Roy Takumi, D-36th (Pearl City, Palisades), the chairman of the House Education Committee, has questions about the state Board of Education's response to the law but said he plans to tell Lingle it is too soon for conclusions.

"It's not like a Cup O' Noodles. It's going to take time," he said.

House and Senate Democrats interviewed over the past few days said such issues as disaster planning, long-term care and land use probably would also come up next session. The Big Island earthquakes in October and the Kaloko dam failure on Kaua'i last March have led some lawmakers to ask whether they have done enough to prepare for emergencies. The wreckage from Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast last year prompted lawmakers to increase spending on disaster preparedness last session.

Democrats hope to resolve internal leadership spats in both the House and Senate so they can begin work on a legislative package and, possibly, a better strategy of communicating their agenda to voters.

"I would like to see the Senate and the House be somewhat more aggressive," said Senate President Robert Bunda, D-22nd (North Shore, Wahiawa).

Democrats have built on their majority at the Legislature since Lingle won in 2002, but they often have been confounded by the governor's superior communication skills and her success at using her office to frame policy debates. The party gained two House seats on Tuesday — after picking up five seats in 2004 — and now holds a 43-to-8 majority in the House. The party kept its 20-to-5 majority in the Senate.

But Lingle won with the highest vote total of her career, getting more votes statewide than U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, did in his re-election campaign and proving again that the right Republican can do well in a solidly blue state.

The governor said she believes voters are basing their decisions on individual candidates rather than on competing policy.

"I don't think people are saying they want them to set policy and not me and I need to just operate the bureaucracy of the government," she said. "I think they felt that we're on the right track, we're making progress, we're going in the right direction.

"The vote was a vote of confidence."

State Sen. Rosalyn Baker, D-5th (W. Maui, S. Maui), said voters do not want acrimony between the Democrats and Lingle but also recognize there are policy differences.

"It's a give and take," said Baker, who believes Lingle has deftly used public relations to spread her message. "We have people that we need to be accountable to and responsible to. She comes back into office and she's a lame duck immediately.

"I think to the extent that she wants to work with the Legislature and look at what's best for Hawai'i as a whole, I think — as we have in the past — there will be a receptive audience."

There was some acknowledgement from Democrats that their gains in the House, as in 2004, were tied to national trends instead of any specific state concerns. An unprecedented get-out-the-vote campaign in the Islands for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in the last week before the 2004 presidential election — after polls showed him tied with President Bush — was credited with helping Democrats pick up five House seats.

This year, Democrats used public anger with Bush and the war to motivate people to vote Democratic down the ballot, which may have helped in open House seats where voters had no other real affinity with the candidates beyond political party. Democrats won seven of eight open House seats.

House Speaker Calvin Say, D-20th (St. Louis Heights, Palolo, Wilhelmina Rise), said national issues such as federal spending on the war can trickle down and affect states, so he believes it was legitimate for Democrats to link Bush to state Republican candidates. But he also said it did not make sense for Democrats to make the election about Lingle when she had high approval ratings and $6.5 million in campaign money to spend.

"It was really a message to the president that some of his national policies aren't working," Say said.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.