policy broker

Rice, while she has settled rather successfully into the national security adviser role of honest policy broker, is at heart more impatient with make-nice diplomacy than Powell.

The search for consensus among Republican and Democratic governors on policy also marks a notable shift in the role of the nation's governors from power brokers in the 1960's to policy brokers in the 1980's.

The forum is unlike the other targets of protesters - the International Monetary Fund, for example, and the World Bank - in that its role as a private policy broker is overshadowed by its appearance.

And while the State Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, has played the mediator, trying to be both policy broker and political peacemaker, some longtime lobbyists say his balancing act forces him to straddle the contradictions.