Romney to kick off race in Mich.

Mitt Romney's decision to launch his presidential campaign from Michigan today, despite his nearly four decades in Massachusetts, can be explained in two words: history and politics.

The history: A native Michigander, Romney grew up 20 miles north of where he'll make his formal announcement this morning, at the Henry Ford Museum in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn. His father, George, was a Detroit auto executive, three-term Michigan governor, and, briefly, a 1968 Republican presidential candidate.

A Romney field operative, trying to draw supporters to today's event, described Mitt Romney in an e-mail last week as "one of Michigan's own."

Which leads to the politics. Romney knows that his name, thanks to his father, is still a draw for many Great Lake State voters. He has even said in the past that he would never have left his home state if he had planned on a political career.

"Running as a Romney in Michigan is golden for a politician," Romney was quoted as saying in a 2005 interview with the Boston Herald. "I would have never thought about Massachusetts, had I anticipated that politics was going to be in my future."

With Michigan making plans to move up its presidential primary near the front of the pack next year, Romney's high name recognition could help him capture an important early victory there. Still, Romney's competitors are hardly ceding the state just because his father was a household name.

Senator John McCain of Arizona has very strong support in Michigan, having captured the 2000 Republican primary over President Bush. And Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas has been busy politicking for the state's conservative voters and activists; over the weekend he and Romney mined the state GOP convention in Grand Rapids.

Recent polls show Romney has significant ground to gain. A Detroit Free Press-Local 4 (WDIV-TV) poll earlier this month put Romney a distant fourth behind McCain, former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, and former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who hasn't committed to running. Romney's campaign downplayed the results, saying it was early in the nomination fight. But political observers were surprised he didn't fare better.

Asked about Romney's decision to make his announcement in Michigan, spokesman Kevin Madden said the venue "speaks to the power of innovation and the unlimited ingenuity and working spirit of the American people."

"Governor Romney's campaign is going to be about harnessing that same energy, innovation, and competitive fire in order to lead the nation as we face a new generation of challenges together," Madden said in an e-mail.

When Romney steps up to the microphone at 9 a.m. today, he will be kicking off his campaign not far from the Veterans Memorial Building in Detroit, where his father did the same thing on Nov. 18, 1967.

In fact, though the presidential campaigns of Romney and his father are 40 years apart, they have much in common.

Both father and son were businessmen who won elections as governor before seeking the White House. For both, the leading issue has been an increasingly unpopular war waged by the United States on the other side of the world. And both have sounded similar themes on the campaign trail: attacking wasteful spending in Washington, calling for a common morality, and championing the spirit of the American people.

Here's George Romney in his 1967 announcement speech: "We must recognize that the root source of America's strength is the divinely endowed freedom of its people."

And here's Mitt Romney in a speech to a Republican Governors Association conference two months ago: "If you believe that, as I do, that our source of strength is our people, then when America faces a new generation of challenges like we do today, you don't look to government. . . . You look to make the people stronger, because that has always been and will always be the source of our destiny."

But while George Romney was proud to call himself a moderate, Mitt Romney is running as a conservative.

Ed Sarpolus, an independent Michigan pollster, said he believes that Romney is announcing from Michigan to remind people he hails from a state in the American heartland .

"That gives me the sense that he's trying to reflect his Midwestern and middle-class values, and it's much harder to do that from Massachusetts and much easier to do from Michigan," Sarpolus said.

Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.