NEVER MIND how it came out in the end. Inez Tenenbaum calls the past 12 months “one of the best years of my life.”

There are things she won’t miss, of course: “I’m glad I can go to Gold’s Gym in the morning and not see negative ads about me blasted all over the place.”

And her unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate was grueling. She hadn’t been through such a nonstop ordeal “since law school.”

But that’s part of what made it worthwhile. “I didn’t know I had that kind of stamina,” she said. Now that she knows, she feels stronger and more confident, better able to “articulate positions” in the face of fierce opposition.

She said she had heard several of his colleagues observe that Joe Lieberman is a better senator for having run for president. She predicts her Senate run will help her perform better as state superintendent of education.

“While I’m going to continue to reach across party lines, I’m going to be very confident in putting forth my ideas,” she said. “I have a lot more courage to speak out and defend my positions.”

Even if that means going up against Gov. Mark Sanford. She knows he is preparing to push his tuition tax credit plan harder than ever. “And we’re gonna be pushing back,” she promised.

“I don’t know if South Carolina has ever had a situation where we have a governor who is just against public education,” she said. She said she has tried to form a partnership on education with Mr. Sanford during the past couple of years, but “we just don’t have a taker there.”

She notes that the governor did help obtain funding for the Education and Economic Development Act — which builds curriculum around career clusters — and has been somewhat supportive of First Steps.

But when it comes to his overall attitude toward public education, “I don’t find that it’s a strong interest.”

And this perplexes her. “I just don’t understand his philosophy on it.” In any case, she believes he has “underestimated ... the force behind public education.” The governor may not take much interest in the public schools, but most South Carolinians do.

“I’m all for school choice” — public school choice, that is. She supports charter and magnet schools, and other ways to provide options to students.

But allowing tax money that would normally be spent on public schools or other critical state needs to go to private school tuition is out of the question. It flies in the face of the successful strategy the state has pursued since 1998 of demanding greater accountability of public education.

“Look at what we’ve put on public education — the EAA, and No Child Left Behind,” said Mrs. Tenenbaum. “And we want to send money to private schools, where there is no accountability at all?”

She expects the coming year to bring a verdict in the lawsuit poor school districts have brought against the state for failing to fund them adequately. In a continuation of the pattern of neglect that got us to this point, no one in the State House appears to be doing anything to prepare for the eventuality of the districts winning.

“I’m going to be fighting for funds for public education,” she said. In part, that will entail “educating people about the progress we’re making.” The folks who want to give up on public schools have been spreading despair, cherry-picking statistics that give an impression that is 180 degrees from the overall truth. On Mrs. Tenenbaum’s side is the fact that most key statistics show progress in the public schools over the past six years. Her biggest challenge is that the governor, who has a much bullier pulpit, is one of those counseling despair.

While she’s willing to take on the governor on this, she shows little interest in trying for his job two years from now. She says it would be “a real uphill thing going against a popular governor.” In any case, “It’s really not the time to be thinking about what’s next,” beyond the job at hand.

“I think we need to have someone standing up for education,” and she looks forward to playing that role for the foreseeable future.

Still, she did mention twice during an interview that she got 118,000 more votes in her Senate bid than Mr. Sanford got in 2002.

And even though that was 152,000 fewer than Jim DeMint, “I am proud of the campaign we ran,” she said. “You just couldn’t get around the Bush coattails.”

“I don’t think it was a woman thing” as some feminists would have it. And she presents figures that dispute reports that she was abandoned by black voters. Her problem was simply this:

“I ran against Jim DeMint, George Bush, Mark Sanford and Lindsey Graham,” all of whom appeared in campaign ads. Rep. DeMint “had the benefit of having the president of the United States on television for him.

“I thought the other day, what if I’d had a popular president doing ads for me?

“Gosh, I could have won.”

Write to Mr. Warthen at bwarthen@thestate.com.