Romney vs. Giuliani

Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani are both running for president as experienced, results-oriented executives ready to roll up their sleeves and get things done.

But that's pretty much where the similarities end. Stylistically, the former governor of Massachusetts and the former mayor of New York City are as different as can be. With both stumping regularly in New Hampshire, the Granite State campaign has offered a good chance to observe their contrasting styles. So let's see how they compare.

Performance polish: Here, Romney wins hands down. As a venture capitalist, he was a practiced professional presenter - and as a presidential candidate, that training shows. His standard speech touches on important issues without dwelling overly long on any of them. And he manages to seem reasonably spontaneous even as he hits the same applause lines and puts well-worn jokes through their paces. (Altogether now: "I said to Ann, Ann, in your wildest dreams did you see me running for president? And she said, 'Mitt, you weren't in my wildest dreams.'.") And yet, despite his pitchman's polish, Romney occasionally appears off-balance. When a man at an event in Hudson noted that Romney has said he'd like to double Guantanamo and asked, among other things, how he would ensure the rights of the innocent, the candidate sidestepped that thorny issue. When the questioner politely tried to follow up, Romney brushed him off.

"I've got to take another question," he said, and quickly moved on.

Rudy, by contrast, is intense, off-the-cuff, and uneven, but ever confident. Each Giuliani speech or answer is a political jazz riff, headed who knows quite where. While Romney speaks in polished, pre-fab paragraphs, Rudy is a rat-a-tat rhetorician who goes off in determined pursuit of whatever notion has popped into his head.

Inclination toward conciliation or bluntness: Romney is a consensus-seeker who moves naturally to glide over conflict points and emphasize where he agrees with a questioner. Queried on an issue, he'll often praise the question and do what he can to find common ground with the asker. After Romney stressed his ability to work with Democrats at a recent stop in Bow, a man said he wanted to hear less about that and more about Romney's willingness to fight for his principles.

"That's a good point," said the Mittster, who then proceeded to regale the audience with tales of his battles with Beacon Hill Democrats.

Giuliani, by contrast, is more likely to be frank about where he disagrees. When a woman at a Politics and Eggs public-affairs breakfast in Bedford said the United States was not in good standing with many other countries, and asked Giuliani what he thought about the United States being viewed in a poor light, the candidate quickly made it clear he didn't subscribe to that notion.

"I think you could look at that from a half-empty, half-full glass analysis," Giuliani said. Rudy, it quickly became apparent, saw the glass as half full. Actually, make that pretty much fully full.

"I sure didn't hear that from the president of France when he came here," said Giuliani. "Even the new prime minister of Great Britain has gone out of his way to point out the special relationship between the United States and Great Britain."

There followed an explanation of the world according to Rudy. Praising our economic system, our political system, our health-care system, our productivity, our logical outlook, and our problem-solving prowess, Giuliani proclaimed the United States "the most successful nation in the history of the world" and opined that "any person in any other country that really focuses on this carefully enough wouldn't mind being here."

Although we might sometimes appear arrogant, the problem could also be that others were simply jealous, he said. In any event, the real challenge was to explain ourselves and our advantages better and more humbly.

And he laid out how he'd do that. If any country worried we were trying to force our ways on them, "we should go talk to them, explain to them, 'we don't want to force you to be a democracy, it is just that we have something that is so good we really would like to share it with you. We don't mean this in an arrogant way, we mean it in a humble way. We know it would be better for you.'."

Mien: Romney plays the part of an accomplished executive ready to apply his knowledge and problem-solving expertise to the nation's ills. Like seemingly every candidate, he gilds the lily in describing his accomplishments, but he can temper it all with an occasional dash of humility.

Giuliani comes off exactly like the hard-nosed prosecutor and battle-ready mayor he once was. The primary qualities he projects are confidence, determination, and combativeness. Meanwhile, he's always ready to marvel anew about his successes in Gotham.

"You can't go get extraordinary results when you haven't done that throughout the rest of your life," he said in Bedford. "You've got to know how to accomplish things that other people weren't able to accomplish, and I think I've shown that during my career, that I can get results that other people weren't able to get."

Authenticity: No doubt about who wins here. Despite his best efforts to project everyday American sincerity, Romney can sometimes come off as slick and saccharine.

Not so Giuliani. With him, there's no doubt that what you see is what you get - but with this brash, blunt candidate, that may be a mixed blessing.

Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com.