Gov. Mark Sanford's approach to this new year -- an election year -- was laid out last week in a "simple State of the State," as he described it in a Wednesday briefing with editorial writers. The speech was simple, and disappointing for its lack of details.

Having spent three years bumping heads with the Legislature and achieving few victories, Sanford has decided on a new approach. Describing his past behavior as "going out there with vetoes ... and dusting it up," Sanford told editorial writers, "I'm looking for a better way of doing it."

Unnecessary, sometimes even silly, confrontation isn't the way to achieve results. But in some areas, a strong gubernatorial voice is needed to bring reason to a legislative debate. The governor hit on one defining issue near the end of his State of the State -- that of property tax reform. But while making some cautionary points, the governor made it apparent he didn't want to lose a limb by mishandling this explosive issue.

It's in the area of property tax reform that legislators have the potential to do the most mischief. Handled recklessly, with an eye only to pleasing voters this fall, legislators can do extraordinary damage this year. They can enact so-called reform that makes it difficult for local governments to do their jobs, creates terrible inequities between neighbors who own similar homes, puts border counties at a disadvantage with neighbors across state lines and shifts a sizable part of the tax burden from upper-income residents to those with less financial means.

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To this end, Sanford put forth a few "markers" on what he will be looking for. The first is that a property tax-sales tax swap cannot result in a tax increase. Then he wants the Legislature to do what many lawmakers are eager to do, which is look at many of the existing sales tax exemptions. And he wants the reform effort to keep its eye on the state's overall competitiveness position and not hurt the business environment.

With one of his markers, Sanford ventured into an interesting area -- that of looking at impact fees so growth will pay for itself instead of increasing taxes on longtime residents. While in his speech he said he's "not averse to looking at this option in this debate," he made it clear in the meeting with editorial writers that he's not willing to risk much political capital in this area.

Elsewhere, Sanford championed some ideas in the areas of economic development and education, but again with few specifics.

To the credit of the Legislature and the governor, significant strides were made in 2005 to enhance this state's economic competitiveness in areas such as tort reform and an income tax cut for small businesses. Sanford said he favored reform of the workers' compensation system and restoring some of the money his administration cut from the industry-recruiting Commerce Department. Both ideas already have support in the Legislature, and the governor should be a strong advocate in these areas.

He's again calling for restructuring to make government more efficient and more accountable. A legitimate fear is that he has not worked the soil in the Legislature over the past three years, and it will be difficult to get lawmakers to give up some of their power. A vigorous effort by the governor in this area is needed to complete the restructuring campaign begun more than a decade ago by then-Gov. Carroll Campbell.

South Carolina has ground to make up in the area of economic development -- and in the area of education, too. Sanford and lawmakers have noted with pride that last year they fully funded the base student cost for the first time in five years and gave teachers a pay increase. The governor has backed off his sweeping proposal to give tax credits to just about anyone in the state with a desire to send a child to a private school. This year he's pushing a more flexible charter school law -- and this is a promising idea. But other ideas are few and far between when it comes to education.