Taking inventory

The Observer loves a political campaign because it helps me bond with my radio and TV.

I was making that endless loop onto I-93 south from Charlestown a while ago when word came through the car radio that Deval Patrick wants another 1,000 police officers on the streets of this state. I'm just guessing here, but the words out of my mouth aimed at my dashboard must have been the very ones out of Kerry Healey's : ``How are you going to pay for them?"

I've also had more spirited ripostes at my TV in this governor's race than my usual roster of directives aimed at Bill O'Reilly. Every time I saw the Healey ad pushing the temporary suspension of the state gas tax because prices had spiked, I shouted at my screen, ``Isn't that, like, exactly the wrong thing to do? I mean, is this the most craven act in the history of the Western hemisphere or what?"

It pales, actually, next to the handiwork of fellow Republican Bill Frist, Senate majority leader and nonpareil of the craven sweepstakes. A once reputable cardiac surgeon, the man went to Congress, caught an ugly case of Oval Office fever, and ended up challenging the diagnosis of doctors on the scene in Florida of Terri Schiavo's persistent vegetative state after reviewing videotape of her from Washington.

But few stir my juices these days like our governor, Mitt Romney, whom I choose to call Casper The Friendly Ghost. You remember him. The guy with the great hair who distinguished himself most recently by refusing to provide a state police escort for former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami when he spoke at Harvard.

Forget the sheer pettiness of this act. What it proved beyond a shadow of a doubt is that Romney's every move is made with at least one eye on the South Carolina primary. More broadly, his eagerness to trash this state for his political gain elsewhere is stunning.

If Frist is the prohibitive favorite to retire the Craven Cup, then, Romney has emerged as a strong second. I know scads of Democrats and Independents who voted for him on the assumption he'd provide competent, nonideological leadership in lieu of Shannon O'Brien and the usual Democratic rodeo. Today, they ruefully conclude they've gotten neither.

Romney's pandering at our expense while running for president has cost him our regard. Recent poll numbers confirm that almost half of Bay State residents now view him unfavorably and over half believe he has taken the state in the wrong direction. He has become, to spare you the albatross analogy, a truck tire around the neck of his lieutenant governor, Ms. Healey.

But enough about him. He's history in a few months. The larger point is this: Should Patrick hold on to his lead, the 15-year Republican hegemony running this state ends.

It began in 1991 with the brains, insouciance, and jaw-dropping laziness of the patrician Bill Weld, who had the charm of a flaneur and the attention span of a hummingbird. He never got mad. To get mad at the Irish pols at the State House was like raising your voice at the help.

The man was a dangerous politician because he didn't care. He could walk away from it all for the Ausable Club in a heartbeat. Then we realized he actually didn't care.

That said, the Republican juggernaut lost huge intellectual altitude when Weld left and Paul Cellucci, then Jane Swift, took the controls. Weld was smarter asleep than those two were after a pot of French roast. Romney has brains but no compass. He swept in on a bipartisan zephyr of hope and leaves on a low clowd of disappointment.

It is worth remembering that the Big Dig was dreamed up by Democrats but executed under these folks. They also displayed an irritating proclivity to take a powder while in office. Weld resigned to pursue the ambassadorship to Mexico. He did so after having trashed Jesse Helms , chair of the Senate committee with veto power over Weld's appointment, who, you guessed it, vetoed Weld's appointment.

Cellucci bolted from governor to be ambassador to Canada, then left that job to work for a Canadian gambling conglomerate and is now with a law firm. Swift, to be fair, served out his term and . . . where is Swift? Romney, meanwhile, began manifesting telltale signs of White House itch early in his tenure.

Last week, Time magazine uncorked a fabulous cover photograph of the back end of an elephant along with a story that asked if the gamy Mark Foley fiasco will end the Republican revolution that began in 1994, when Newt Gingrich led the storming of the Democratic barricades to take control of Congress.

A similar question applies here: Is it Twilight of the Gods time for Republicans in the top state office? There is no horrific sex saga -- just the Big Dig and a feeling that the air in the room has gotten stale.

Healey could pull it out. The notion that we need a Republican governor to temper the intemperate urges of a Democratic legislature still has traction among many. But tides come and go in the political game and you get the feeling this one may be on the way out.

Sam Allis's e-mail address is allis@globe.com.