When asked of his plans a few days after his colleagues put him in charge, incoming Senate President Steve Pierce replied: “See, I’d just tell you. I don’t know what that is right now.”

That’s Pierce. Chances are, you won’t hear him wiggle his way out if he doesn’t have an answer. He’ll just tell you if he doesn’t have an answer.

Three years after joining the Legislature, it appears the Prescott rancher hasn’t completely morphed into a politician.

Friends and colleagues describe Pierce as a plainspoken man with a dry sense of humor.  He rarely gives speeches on the floor. When he does, they’re quick. No big words.

“I come down here to do a job and I want to leave. Other people come down here, and this is their backyard,” he once told the Arizona Capitol Times.

To friends, that’s the mindset of a cowboy.

The rancher in Pierce was often on display when he chaired caucus meetings as the majority whip. He wanted to get in, get out and move on to the next task. And as big debates are inevitable, his impatience with long discussions sometimes bubbled to the surface. He can be funny when he pleads with party-mates to move on to the next topic.

Pierce, 61, rose to become the Senate’s most influential member after outgoing Senate President Russell Pearce was ousted in a historic recall election on Nov. 8.

It’s not the first time he stepped in to fill a vacuum. In 2009, Republicans elected Pierce as majority whip following the resignation of then-Sen. Pamela Gorman of Anthem, who was against a sales tax referral that the rest of her caucus was willing to pass.

Now he’s on the spot again. The challenges are a little different, but no less severe.

Pierce will preside over a caucus that’s bigger than the one he joined in 2009. But don’t think that makes it easier to pass Republican measures. Republicans remain fractured, perhaps more than ever, and some of the divisions run deep.

The budget situation has improved, but the crisis isn’t fully abated. The sales tax referral that Gov. Jan Brewer successfully pushed for last year will expire in 2013.

It’s now up to Pierce and other state leaders to ensure Arizona doesn’t find itself in the muck it was three years ago.

In addition to old issues, he will face new ones.

They include how to deal with the man who defeated Pearce in the recall election, Jerry Lewis, who is a fellow Republican.

Pierce wants to move on, but some of the Republicans still harbor hard feelings against Lewis, while others warned that if the “warpath” against the neophyte politician continues, it’s going to be tough to rally the caucus around Republican issues.

Pierce will have to navigate through this gamut of emotions among party-mates. The issue might seem trifling, but in a place where relationships and loyalties matter as much as one’s position on policies, a misstep courts trouble.

Then there’s the love-hate relationship between the Legislature and the governor that sometimes resembles a line graph of the stock market.  Pierce will have to partner with a governor who sometimes won’t take “no” for an answer and represent a Legislature that can be just as recalcitrant.

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Those who know Pierce said his background as a rancher will serve him well.

In a way, he’s suited for the position, they said.

As a rancher, he has to deal with nature, which he can’t control. Likewise, as a legislative leader, he can’t always control what problems will emerge. All the same, he can’t afford to wait for solutions to appear.

In short, Pierce is used to managing problems.

“Up there on his ranch, he has to steward with Mother Nature not always agreeing with him,” said Bas Aja, who heads the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association. Aja is a close friend of Pierce.

“When you have that situation where you’ve got land, animals and nature swirling around you every single day, there’s always challenges. It’s a cow having a problem giving birth. It’s a drought. It’s a windstorm blowing down a tree over the road. It’s always something,” Aja said.

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People’s perception of Pierce as a guy who is comfortable with cows or with people should make it easier for him to manage the variety of expectations in his chamber.

One such expectation is that he will ably bridge the factions in his caucus. Pierce, for example, is a close ally of Pearce, but he has also shown his independence from the outgoing senator, such as when he voted against the five immigration measures the latter championed this year.

One veteran lobbyist remarked that this means he has the ear of the pro-Pearce and the anti-Pearce factions in his chamber.

That’s not the only division among Republicans, who have split on immigration and tax policy, to name a few.

One of those who saw Pierce’s leadership potential early on is former Senate President Bob Burns.

Burns appointed him as his pro-tempore, even though he was then a new lawmaker. But the gamble paid off since the rancher proved to be a reliable ally in riding the fiscal storm and helping to manage the woes that resulted from the crisis.

“He is very comfortable dealing with people,” Burns said. “He’s the kind of a guy that can smooth out a lot of the ruffled feathers when feathers get ruffled.”

Matthew Benson, the gubernatorial spokesman, echoed the sentiment.

“President Pierce is in kind of the unique position to serve as a bridge between the different factions in the caucus and the governor believes that he can do that well,” Benson said. “She’s kind of heartened by the fact that she doesn’t believe that President Pierce is interested in a lot of intraparty warfare. He’s somebody who, it appears, wants to get stuff done as opposed to wanting to exact a pound of flesh.”

Benson said Pierce’s character as a straight-talker and direct should also serve as a reality check for the governor and fellow lawmakers.

“I think it’s important that she has somebody… (who is) going to give her an honest assessment of the political realities within the caucus, and likewise it’s critical that the caucus has somebody who will tell them the cold, hard truth,” he added.

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Pierce’s leadership is unlikely to bring major departures in policies in his chamber.

The budget, for example, is likely to still be hashed out by Republicans while Democrats try to influence it from the sidelines. Pierce promised to be accessible and to listen to Democrats.

But some Democrats at least expect a shift in tone with Pierce at the helm.

“Russell Pearce had a, you know, my-way-or-the-highway leadership style,” said Sen. Steve Gallardo, a Democrat from Phoenix who perennially clashed with Pearce on the Senate floor. “He didn’t care if he caused division within the Legislature or even his own caucus. I think Steve Pierce is going to do what he can to bring the entire body together.”

Other Democrats, however, weren’t as convinced.

Andrei Cherny, chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party, said not much has changed —except a letter in the Senate leader’s name.

“Were Senate Republicans wearing earplugs on Tuesday? Not only have they ignored the voters’ message about Russell Pearce, they’ve replaced him with someone who votes with Pearce for ‘birther’ bills and other out-of-touch legislation,” Cherny said on the day Pierce was chosen to replace Pearce. “By replacing Russell Pearce with Steve Pierce, very little will change — other than one vowel.”

But someone who knew Pierce before he was a senator said what the incoming president offers is a mindset that doesn’t regard the political landscape as a battlefield.

Pearce, though not entirely of his doing, ultimately came to view things in terms of a war, said the Capitol insider, who requested anonymity.

“Everything was war. Steve Pierce doesn’t think in that manner. He doesn’t look at things as war,” the source said.