Being governor wasn't on Romney's list
New book details his path to politics
Running for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 was so far from Mitt Romney's thoughts that it topped his list of ''what we knew we wouldn't do" after heading the Salt Lake City Olympics, Romney writes in his new book, ''Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games."
''For three years, [Romney's wife] Ann and I had tried to think about what we would do after the Olympics," Romney writes. ''We decided it might be easier to list what we knew we wouldn't do. At the top of that list was 'run for Governor of Massachusetts.' And here we were, with days to go before opening ceremonies, and we were thinking about it."
Although it weighs in at nearly 400 pages, ''Turnaround" devotes little ink to the Bay State, a point driven home by the index, in which the pop group Barenaked Ladies has more entries than Massachusetts. But what he does say about Massachusetts offers interesting insights into the mind of the man who holds the state's most powerful elective office and the experience that led him to run.
''Party activists almost plead[ed] with me to give it serious thought," Romney writes. ''Two people I had never heard of or met began draft movements, collecting delegate commitments to vote for me at the upcoming Republican convention. A state representative endorsed me."
Romney says the adulation was flattering, but a conversation with Peter Ueberroth, the former Major League Baseball commissioner who ran the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, proved perhaps just as pivotal to his decision to run for governor.
Ueberroth ''had considered running for governor of California after their Games, but decided that he needed a bit of a break," Romney writes. ''Then US Senator Pete Wilson ran and won. And the window never really opened again."
Looking back on his first year and a half in office, Romney says he made the right choice: ''There is not one day when I have regretted making a full commitment to public service. The battles, the triumphs, the personal associations are more rewarding than I could have imagined."
Romney says his father, former Michigan governor and onetime Republican presidential candidate George Romney, infected him with a desire for public service, leading him in 1993 to take on US Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
''Something almost irrational happened," Romney recalls. ''I began to think about making a run. . . . We felt that someone needed to stand up, to offer a different vision from the one Kennedy and his colleagues had been pitching for decades. I wondered if that someone ought not be me."
But Romney and his consultant, Charley Manning, saw little hope for a victory, the governor writes.
''A Republican, white, male, Mormon millionaire in Massachusetts had no credible chance," Romney writes, a rare candid glimpse into the Belmont resident's feelings of being an outsider in his largely Catholic state.
In the book, Romney, a multimillionaire who built a personal fortune as a venture capitalist, credits Kennedy with running ''a great campaign," saying that it was a ''particularly effective attack" that ''reinforced people's misperceptions about me as a money-grubbing businessman."
Romney also offers a few charitable words for legislative Democrats on Beacon Hill, who often override his vetoes. Writing in the past tense for reasons that are not altogether clear, Romney says, ''We were fortunate that the Democratic leaders were good people; we often didn't agree -- but we got along. I respected their views. They often respected those of my administration as well. In truth, we were working for the same things, but sometimes with different viewpoints."
''Turnaround," while new to bookstores, is experiencing brisk sales -- even though the book's official launch does not take place until August. Yesterday, it came in at 78,669 on the
Manning said proceeds from ''Turnaround" will go to Right to Play, an organization founded by a Norwegian speed skating champion that donates sports equipment to impoverished countries.
