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In fact, the comptroller is more than the state's accountant, tax collector and revenue estimator. Her predecessors, the late Bob Bullock and John Sharp, masterfully transformed the office into arguably the most powerful in state government. The comptroller has broad authority to scrutinize school districts and government agencies. After exposing shortcomings, the comptroller can then recommend changes that fit his or her political agenda.

As a result, a savvy comptroller can guide the direction of state government even more than the governor and the lieutenant governor can, even though the comptroller's position is not nearly as prestigious. Bullock left the job in 1990 to become lieutenant governor, and Sharp tried unsuccessfully in 1998 to make the same leap.

Rylander's political shrewdness is undeniable. Barry Williamson beat her in the 1992 Republican primary for railroad commissioner, but it was Rylander who had the goods for a scandal on the Democrat in the race, Lena Guerrero, an appointee of then-governor Ann Richards. Williamson beat Guerrero after Rylander's defeated campaign let loose of its little secret that Guerrero had lied about having a college degree.

Rylander was undeterred by that 1992 defeat, which came two years after she co-chaired Clayton Williams's unsuccessful run for governor. She ran for railroad commissioner again in 1994 against Mary Scott Nabers, another Richards appointee, and defeated her. Two years later she won easily over Hector Uribe to keep her seat. She returned to campaign mode six months later to run for comptroller.

Frank Cahoon, a Midland oilman who was the only Republican in the Texas Legislature in 1964, says Rylander has followed in the footsteps of other past railroad commissioners, who used the office as a stepping stone and bled dry the oil industry to get to where they wanted to be, he says.

"I am disappointed when people assume that job, raise money from the industry and quickly move on to another," Cahoon says. "But I would have to say I am no more disappointed in Carole than I am in several others."

Sharp, eight years after he left the railroad commission, was still able to tap into the oil industry to help fund his unsuccessful 1998 Democratic campaign for lieutenant governor. Cahoon believes those in the oil industry, including Republicans, continued to support Sharp because they always felt he would be a short-timer in the job and therefore did not feel betrayed when he left. "I think we always had it in the back of our minds that he was on a career path aimed at being governor of Texas," he says.

The oil industry saw Rylander differently, Cahoon says. "We viewed Carole as a tremendously energetic person and a great campaigner. I think the general feeling was that she would get on the commission and she'd be pretty hands-on. And even though she didn't know much about the oil industry initially, I do think we believed that she would stay on for a protracted period of time."

Rylander told them as much, both on the campaign trail and when she privately telephoned them for contributions.

"I would say she was an aggressive fund-raiser," Cahoon says. "She is just an aggressive personality in anything she does."

The oil industry happily donated money to her 1998 campaign for comptroller when she asked for it, which may have had more to do with self-preservation than adoration. Rylander continued as a commissioner while campaigning and thus still had a hold over the industry she regulated. Moreover, had she lost the race, she would have been eligible to serve out the remaining four years of her term. The industry couldn't afford to snub her.

As comptroller, she is no longer able to rely on the gusher of oil industry money to catapult her political career. Now, she can rely on the wealthy businesspeople who benefit most from e-Texas.

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When Rylander finally unveiled e-Texas during an Austin news conference in November, she did not emphasize the outsourcing aspects as much as she did its electronic gizmo angle. How do you think e-Texas got its name, anyway?

The goal of e-Texas, according to the first sentence of the comptroller's news release, is "to transform Texas government from its traditional bricks and mortar foundation to a national technological leader that uses bytes, chips and satellite airwaves to deliver services."

At the news conference Rylander stressed that government needs to work toward the day when Texans can renew their driver's licenses or motor vehicle registrations over the Internet and small business owners can pay all their taxes and obtain various permits in one sitting at a computer. "Government is stuck in the age of Atari and Commodore, while the rest of the world is on fast-forward to Web-based management and e-commerce," she said.

E-Texas bonds Rylander to the ankles of a sleeping giant in the political world: Texas's high-tech businesses. Until recently, the computer geek was a minor player in the high-stakes enterprise of influencing politicians. All that changed with the national debate over whether to tax e-commerce. It didn't take long for the high-tech crowd to realize that steering government policy in its favor means filling the campaign coffers of the politicians who make the decisions. Politicians were quick to pick up on that new campaign revenue stream.