Collegial speech displayed a marked change in attitude
What was most striking was the tone. Governor Mitt Romney, as he laid out an ambitious agenda for 2005, displayed a collegiality and even friendliness toward lawmakers that was absent for much of the last two years.
He complimented legislators on their wisdom. He thanked them several times. He sounded like a politician eager to get things done, with an eye toward his reelection race or a campaign for president.
When he arrived to give his speech, Romney descended into the well of the House, grabbing and pumping hands of legislators from one side of the aisle to the other, and chatting amiably with them. It was an unusual performance for a governor who seems uncomfortable with the backslapping chores of politics.
The 25-minute speech was devoid of challenges and combative language. It was in sharp contrast to a year ago, when, amid some boos from lawmakers, Romney launched an attack on Beacon Hill's status quo and tried to position Democratic legislators as its defenders. That same year, he delivered a thinly veiled threat to the Democrats that they would pay a political price if they stood in the way of his proposed changes and protected such institutions as the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and its controversial chairman, Matthew J. Amorello.
"This is marked change, even from governors before Romney," said Senate minority leader Brian Lees, Republican of East Longmeadow, after reading the speech. "I think that this new tone will go a long way in getting those priorities passed."
Last night Romney talked of "reaching across the aisle" and "team effort." He talked of working closely with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the man he tried to drive out of the Senate in 1994, portraying him as an old liberal dinosaur.
What went unmentioned or unstressed was equally interesting. He did not mention same-sex marriage, a hugely contentious issue for the first half of 2004 that still lingers in the Legislature. He said nothing of his controversial death penalty proposal or the Big Dig, and he offered only a brief pitch for income tax reductions.
Romney has even repackaged his proposal to merge the Turnpike Authority into the state's Highway Department, a plan that fell with a thud in the Legislature for lack of a constituency. He omitted any reference to his favorite political foil, Amorello. He proposed putting the projected savings toward reductions in turnpike tolls, hoping to build public support that lawmakers from Western Massachusetts to Wellesley will have to listen to.
Lees said the governor's restructuring of the turnpike merger is a good example of Romney's new strategy. "The governor has listened and learned," he said. "Tying it to toll relief is a huge seller, and the leadership will have a hard time ignoring it this year."
The speech is the first public evidence of what Romney has been doing quietly for the last several months, courting the Democratic leadership and rank-and-file members.
Romney has a lot of ground to make up. As he looked out over the House chamber last night, he was staring down at some very angry lawmakers.
One obvious reason is the governor's $3 million campaign to unseat Democratic legislators and add Republicans to the GOP delegation to Beacon Hill. It failed miserably. The GOP lost a seat in the House and gained no ground in the Senate, and the losses have forced Romney and his aides to rethink their approach to dealing with the Legislature.
The attempt to approach the Beacon Hill establishment with a softer tone is obviously aimed at blunting the criticism that he can't get any of his priorities approved in the Legislature. On top of that, Romney has taken criticism from Democrats and others that he appears uninterested in the job and is merely seeking to move onto the national stage.
His handlers yesterday were eager to make sure that the address addressed those issues.
"The governor is more engaged that he has ever been," Eric Fehrnstrom, his director of communications, said just hours before Romney strode into the House chamber. Fehrnstrom, who carefully crafts the governor's image for the public's consumption, said Romney is "looking forward to working in a bipartisan fashion" for healthcare reform.
"The job energizes him," Fehrnstrom said. "He is the first person in the office every morning and usually the last to leave." 