And then it was back to Massachusetts. In 2002, the state was led by Republican Jane Swift, probably best known as the first governor to give birth while in office. Swift’s poll numbers were abysmal—only around 35 percent of voters planned to vote to reelect her—and state Republicans desperately hoped to draft Romney. While Democrats protested, not without cause, that Romney did not fulfill state residency requirements, Swift was pressured to drop out by “powerful men,” as she put it. At a teary press conference on March 19, she did. (Swift is now supporting John McCain for president.) That same day Romney announced that he was running for governor.

Again presenting himself as a moderate, pro-choice Republican, Romney stressed his independence from special interests. “I don’t worry about being liked,” he explained. “People respected my dad, but didn’t necessarily like him. The most important thing in life is not being liked. The most important thing is being true to who you really are.” Boosted by such rhetoric, Romney beat a weak Democratic candidate, state treasurer Shannon O’Brien, 50 to 45 percent.

When Romney took office, Massachusetts faced deficits of one to three billion dollars, depending on whose estimates you believe. (Romney claims the latter.) He had said he would do everything possible not to raise taxes, and, technically, he didn’t. Instead, he merged state agencies to effect a small reduction in the size of the Massachusetts government, raised “fees” on driver’s licenses and other state services, and cut state aid to cities and towns, which, in turn, promptly raised their taxes. During Romney’s tenure, the total state and local tax load on Massachusetts residents actually increased.

Romney did have his moments, however. He forced the resignation of powerful political hack Billy Bulger from the presidency of the University of Massachusetts system. He aggressively intervened in the management of the Big Dig tunnel after cement panels fell and killed a woman in a car. And he initiated a plan for universal health insurance in the state, by tapping a fund used to cover emergency-room care for the non-insured. While the final shape of that plan is in flux, few would question that Romney drove the issue and crafted legislation with national import.

But in the last two years of his term, Romney seemed to lose interest in governing. In 2006, he spent all or part of 212 days—four days a week—traveling out of Massachusetts. “His main priority was to position himself to run for president, and he did it by looking for signature opportunities to get national publicity,” argues Marty Linsky, a former Weld adviser who now teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. One such opportunity came in September 2006, when the Kennedy School invited former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami to speak. Though by Iranian standards Khatami is considered a reformer, Romney blasted the move as “a disgrace to the memory of all Americans who have lost their lives at the hands of extremists” and tried to deny Khatami police protection.

The governor was even more outspoken on social issues. After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court legalized gay marriage, Romney fought to keep out-of-state gay couples from marrying in Massachusetts, and pushed for a state constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage without making provision for civil unions. Romney says now that he has always been opposed to both gay marriage and civil unions, and no one has been able to show otherwise. But the moves certainly ran counter to his earlier insistence that “we must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern.”

His hard line on stem cell research and abortion was unquestionably new. In July 2005, Romney vetoed legislation expanding access to the morning-after pill; he wrote a Boston Globe editorial to explain why. “In considering the issue of embryo cloning and embryo farming, I saw where the harsh logic of abortion can lead—to the view of innocent new life as nothing more than research material or a commodity to be exploited.”

As Romney would tell the story, his change of heart followed a meeting with two Harvard scientists from the university’s Stem Cell Institute. Romney claims that one scientist—apparently Douglas Melton, an institute co-director—told him that their research “is not a moral issue, because we kill the embryos at 14 days.” When the scientists left, Romney says, he turned to his chief of staff and declared, “We have cheapened the sanctity of life by virtue of the Roe v. Wade mentality.” Now he opposes the cloning of embryonic stem cells—even though his wife Ann could one day benefit from research involving such cells—and opposes abortion except in the cases of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is at risk.

Melton, however, disputes that story. “I told Governor Romney about ethical stem cell research, work based on a deeply held respect for life and a commitment to do all I can to help those suffering from debilitating diseases,” Melton wrote to me in an e-mail. “The words Governor Romney has attributed to me are simply not part of my professional vocabulary.” Whatever actually transpired, after more than a decade of being challenged on the issue of abortion, would Romney really change his mind because of one alleged callous remark?

Romney’s social shifts have been so dramatic, he can hardly pretend they haven’t happened. Instead, he concedes them. As he explained on one conservative talk-radio show, thanks to the passage of time, “I’m grayer, I’m a little heavier, and I hope I’ve grown a bit wiser as well. Of course I was wrong on some issues back then. I’m not embarrassed to admit that.”

Some social conservatives may actually embrace Romney because of his late-life shifts. “People have conversions,” says James Bopp Jr., a Republican anti-abortion lawyer who supports Romney. “Our two most successful pro-life presidents were both converts. [California] Governor Ronald Reagan signed what was at the time the most permissive abortion law in the country, and George Herbert Walker Bush ran as a pro-choice candidate in 1980. We have to welcome converts as long as they’re sincere.” And how is sincerity measured? “It’s an event that triggers a reconsideration.”

The new, socially hawkish Romney has drawn howls of criticism from detractors who think his right-turn merely a conversion of convenience. But there’s also the possibility that Romney has been conservative all along. “I think, in his heart, he wasn’t pro-choice in 2002,” says one of Romney’s political advisers. In a June 2005 National Review article, former Romney political consultant Mike Murphy called him “a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly.” (Murphy later claimed he was misquoted.) Adds a friend of Romney’s, “I think this is the real Mitt. There’s no question in my mind.” So why wasn’t he conservative in his 1994 and 2002 campaigns? “He just perceived that he couldn’t win that way.”

Whether Romney’s ramped-up conservatism was authentic or fake, Massachusetts voters didn’t like it. By the time he left the governorship in January 2007, Romney’s popularity had plummeted. His poll numbers were actually worse than Swift’s when she quit in 2002. “The guy couldn’t have been reelected on a bet,” says former governor Michael Dukakis.

“I was a huge admirer of his dad’s, not only for his corporate leadership but for his governorship,” Dukakis explains. “He was a very good governor of Michigan, fine secretary of HUD, good instincts, lots of leadership. He was the first guy who said we need a small, efficient automobile. I drove a Rambler with pride.”

George’s son, Dukakis argues, “should have been a very good, very effective moderate Republican.” Instead, “he was a huge disappointment to me and a lot of other people. A huge disappointment.”

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