THE NEWS conference last week to unveil Gov. Mark Sanford's long-awaited package of government restructuring proposals included a virtual Who's Who of powerful legislators.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell opened the news conference, noting that he would be able to ensure that the Senate Judiciary Committee -- which he chairs -- moved the legislation along quickly. He was followed by House Speaker David Wilkins, who doesn't chair a committee but who brought along House Judiciary Chairman Jim Harrison, whose job it will be to move the package through his committee. It wasn't until after both Mr. McConnell and Mr. Wilkins had spoken that Mr. Sanford stepped out from a crowd of a dozen other legislators to discuss the proposals.

I can't remember such a strong coalition of support for any important legislative initiative, outside of a few "grab the big industrial prospect before it gets away" tax-break bills.

Unfortunately, putting together such an impressive line-up comes at a cost: The package does only about half of what is needed to pull our 19th century government into the 21st century. While it goes a long way toward giving the governor control over the administration of government, it does practically nothing to turn that government into something we could reasonably expect a governor to be able to get his arms around and manage.

There is practically nothing in the way of consolidating the executive branch into a manageable number of agencies (say, 15, even 20, as opposed to more than 80), with the governor in charge of nearly all of them. Combine that with the fact that the governor's control over most agencies is still indirect -- he can hire and fire the board members, but it's still up to those board members whether to hire or fire agency directors -- and you have a situation in which the governor has no choice but to concentrate on a selected few agencies and simply hope the others run OK on auto-pilot.

Beyond that, there's no proposal to create a board of regents to coordinate and oversee our expansive system of colleges and universities, even though the fragmentation and duplication in that system is both a waste of money and, as a barrier to excellence at any single institution, a drain on our economy. This is all the more troublesome in light of the fact that legislation speeding its way through the State House would move us in the opposite direction, by spinning the three research universities out of the inadequate oversight system we currently have and into their own system of self-governance.

Likewise, there's nothing in the package to give the governor (or anyone) control over the Department of Public Safety or the Transportation Department. It even sidesteps the most obvious change needed to give the governor control of government: It retains our position as the only state in the nation in which the leader of the military is elected.

Mr. Sanford said in passing that he didn't think it was fair to engage in a debate over changing the selection of the adjutant general while so many members of the Guard are deployed. On the micro level that makes sense; but on the macro level, it's completely backwards. So many Guard members are deployed because our need for their service to country has so dramatically increased in the post-9/11 world.

The new situation we find ourselves in -- with Guard members routinely being called on to protect the world from terrorism, rather than simply directing traffic as hurricanes approach -- cries out for a structure that will ensure we continue to have well-qualified adjutants general. There is absolutely no guarantee of that under our current arrangement, which could allow someone with no military experience to be elected to the post. The only way to guarantee that is to write qualifications into the law -- as supporters of appointment propose to do.

On the broader question of reforming our entire government, Mr. Sanford seemed to sum up his reasons for the short list of reforms with his initial response to questions about why he left the adjutant general untouched. "Politics," he said, "is the art of the possible."

In some ways, it is refreshing to hear Mr. Sanford acknowledge that. If he has stumbled in his first months in office, it has been by refusing to yield to the realities of politics. At the same time, though, there is something refreshing about a governor who is willing to fight for what he believes in, even when the odds are against him.

It's good and well that the governor has been able to pull the legislative leadership together around his proposals. That indicates they have a good chance of becoming law, and our state will be greatly improved if they do.

But it is essential that he -- and we -- remember what has been left out. Mr. Sanford likes to say that then-Gov. Carroll Campbell asked for government restructuring a decade ago and got only half a loaf, and that he's going back and asking for the other half. But the truth is that in his attempt to build consensus, he has settled for asking for only about half of the remaining half a loaf.

Perhaps he believes it would be an act of bad faith to ask for more, now that he has signed up support based on his limited wish list. That's perfectly understandable. But it's not an act of bad faith for the rest of us to ask our Legislature to give us the full loaf.