A bad case of Potomac fever

LIVE AT 6: The governor will insult your intelligence.

And in more ways than one.

In an announcement timed to lead the nightly news, and with his Cabinet arrayed like a clapping claque, on Wednesday Mitt Romney told Massachusetts what had been apparent for months: He won't seek re-election.

But the reasons he gave didn't just strain credulity, they snapped it cleanly in half.

It has long been clear that Romney wants to run for president in 2008.

Indeed, comments by the admirably honest Ann, the candid half of the state's first couple, forced the governor to acknowledge the obvious back in June: He is testing the national waters.

That's not how Romney explained things yesterday, however.

The presidency? Why, the very idea lies ''in a galaxy far, far away."

Those with keen memories may find that assertion more than a little curious.

Isn't this the same governor who has been traveling to places such as Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Michigan, cultivating Republican activists? Hasn't his political action committee been sprinkling dollars around like Johnny Appleseed in some of those same states?

So I asked: Given his travels, isn't it highly disingenuous to pretend that running for president isn't very much on his mind? Romney's answer was too contrived even to qualify as Slick Willard sophistry: Those journeys are party-building affairs that have raised his visibility and thus enhanced his ability to deliver for Massachusetts.

So that's what this has all been about.

Now, let's be clear. It's no sin for Romney to have national aspirations. You can't condemn the governor for that without faulting John Kennedy and Ted Kennedy and Mike Dukakis and John Kerry, other Bay State figures who had similar ambitions while serving in elected offices.

But you can say this: Romney manifested his case of Potomac fever awfully early on, beginning his national explorations with his first term barely half over.

You can also fault him for the transparent trumpery he offered on Wednesday.

Instead of conceding what everyone knows to be true -- he isn't seeking re-election because that will make it easier to run nationally in 2008 -- Romney declared that he had done most of what he set out to do. Consider this howler: ''I have loved the whirlwind of accomplishment of the last three years."

Did I miss the National Weather Service bulletin redefining whirlwind as an intermittent breeze? Or has the Mittster been boasting so much out on the hustings that he has begun to believe his own stump speech?

Certainly Romney deserves considerable credit for fixing the state's troubled finances without raising broad-based taxes -- though with the help of higher fees and so-called loophole closings that amount to back-door corporate tax increases. Yes, there has been some government streamlining. He merits praise for smart growth initiatives, for rescuing charter-school funding from legislative ambush, and for securing a tougher drunk-driving law.

But despite the talent he has attracted to his administration, it often seems less like a state government than a personality cult devoted to burnishing Romney's image.

He is good in circumstances that require only executive action, but has frequently been found wanting when it comes to the hard work of getting his priorities through the Democratic Legislature. Administration initiatives on court consolidation, unemployment insurance, jobs creation, and civil-service reform have basically gone nowhere. Other stands appear to have been struck as exercises in political positioning.

Part of it is that, unlike William Weld or Dukakis, Romney has never seemed comfortable with the give and take of the legislative process. It has been the exception rather than the rule when he has plunged persistently into the nitty-gritty in search of compromise. Those exceptions have yielded results, but they have been too few and far between to make him a particularly effective governor.

Instead, Romney has tended to put big ideas on the table, then let them sit there unattended, only to seem surprised when they are rejected outright or disappear into legislative quicksand.

Add it all up, and he's proved considerably less significant a governor than either Dukakis or Weld, the two seminal CEOs of the last quarter century.

That's not to say that Romney couldn't be an attractive national candidate. The view here is that he would start in the top tier of GOP hopefuls in 2008.

But this week, he doesn't deserve any accolades for honesty or humility.

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