History provides a fitting word for what this nation is experiencing this fall: panic, as in "The Panic of 2008." Who among us hasn't looked at the Dow Jones average on a recent day and felt an impulse to run for cover?

For Minnesotans thus afflicted, I can recommend a few minutes listening to the calm, confident voice of House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher. If she's nervous about the economy, or the election, or the difficulty of balancing the state budget in 2009, the Minneapolis DFLer masterfully disguises it.

The election is still more than two weeks away. This being Minnesota, anything can happen. But Kelliher appears headed for a second term in the second-most-powerful job in state government. With the ideas and strategy she's outlining for next session, the 40-year-old city legislator with country roots shows that she's got a firm grip on more than just the House gavel.

Trouble in the short term? Then think long-term, Kelliher says. Little or no new money to spend next session? That doesn't mean the Legislature can't set new policies and priorities to guide smarter spending decisions now and in the future.

Take early childhood education -- because she does. It's at or near the top of the speaker's priority list. Kelliher plans a rare all-House summit meeting on the subject on Jan. 28.

The topic is ripe for state action. Since the 2003 Legislature whacked child-care subsidies to eligibility levels worse that Mississippi's and cut Early Childhood Family Education to boot, the sense has been growing that Minnesota's education ladder is missing a crucial bottom rung.

Scholars (Art Rolnick and Art Reynolds, take a bow) have been talking up the economic and educational value of making sure every child is ready for kindergarten's lessons. Businesses and foundations have been funding pilot projects aimed at proving that a small amount of preschool money, wisely targeted and spent, can do a lot of good.

Legislators have been angling to attach their names, if not always their votes, to the preschool cause. The bipartisan Early Childhood Caucus has swelled to encompass two-thirds of the Legislature.

But an early ed consensus has been elusive at the Capitol, for the usual reason: Republicans and DFLers disagree. It's oversimpliflying, but not by a lot, to say that Republicans want parents to look to the private sector for help preparing 3- and 4-year-olds for school, while DFLers are more willing to get government involved.

Kelliher is dismissive of such "either/or" thinking. She asserts that a "both/and" solution is possible -- a Minnesota-style collaboration that will "drive decisions by not just public institutions but by private ones."

Her vision: Negotiate broad buy-in to the goal that every 5-year-old in Minnesota will come to kindergarten ready to learn, and to a set of standards for measuring both children's readiness and preschool quality. Accept that families and communities in different circumstances need differing arrays of resources to achieve that goal. Amass the public and philanthropic money now being spent on early education and "repurpose" it to give disadvantaged families and communities locally appropriate access to high-quality early learning experiences.

From almost anyone else at the Capitol, the proper response to all of that would be a skeptical "yeah, sure." But Kelliher was the engineer of last session's transportation veto override, its biosciences bonding breakthrough, and its improbable accord between GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Senate DFL Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller. She has a way of making the difficult seem doable.

"I think the fundamental test of leadership right now is not to go in and manage the biennial budget, which is where we've been locked in for the last few years," Kelliher told the Star Tribune Editorial Board last week. "It's really about bringing people together to maximize all the resources that are available in the community to tackle the big issues that we face."

It usually takes a governor to perform that kind of leadership magic. I suspect that Kelliher has an idea about how to fill that office, too.

Lori Sturdevant is a Star Tribune editorial writer and columnist. She is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.