Big Dig role poses opportunity and risk for Romney

For Mitt Romney's image-makers, the narrative has a new chapter.

He swooped in to save the 2002 Winter Olympics. He eagerly led a Massachusetts campaign last year to shelter evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. Now he's seized responsibility for the latest crisis: the fatal failures last week of the $14.6 billion Big Dig.

But if taking ownership of the megaproject gives Romney a chance to showcase himself as a take-charge problem-solver, it carries significant risk: He is now clearly accountable for what happens on Big Dig roads, bridges, and tunnels.

Put simply, any future safety problems will be laid at his feet.

``I'm happy to take blame if I have responsibility," Romney told reporters at the State House on Friday, hours after signing a bill giving his administration immediate control over the safety of the largest public works project in the country's history. ``And I have a great deal of confidence in the team of state leaders and workers to make me feel that I can sleep at night."

Until a woman died in the Big Dig last week, Romney had been distancing himself from the state as he began to wind down his tenure as governor and turn his attention to a possible 2008 presidential campaign.

The Globe reported last month that from January through mid-June, Romney had logged at least 45 visits to 20 states this year and had spent all or part of 81 days on the road.

On such trips, he often pokes fun at the liberal reputation of Massachusetts, portraying himself as a lonely Republican reformer.

Taking over the Big Dig allows Romney to continue that imagery and position himself against the states political culture and finally nudge aside a longtime target, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority chairman, Matthew J. Amorello.

Romney said he would curtail his travel schedule in the coming weeks as the state works to restore public confidence in the transportation system. He was on vacation at his New Hampshire home when the collapse occurred, but returned Tuesday. Yesterday, he conducted an 8:30 a.m. tour of the stretch of Interstate 90 tunnel where a 38-year-old woman was killed when concrete panels fell on her car.

``Surely, as long as these lanes are closed and so forth, in the early days and weeks here, my travel is going to have to be extremely limited," Romney said Friday. ``Well see as the process goes on how routine it becomes. But if it remains such that I need to be on the site, I will be."

The governor has carefully tried to cultivate a reputation as a decisive leader. Romney wrote a book about his tenure as chairman of the Salt Lake City Olympics, called ``Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games."

Last fall, he coordinated a high-profile effort to provide housing for Hurricane Katrina victims; a relatively small number, about 220 , were brought to a Cape Cod military base.

Offering a contrast, Romney criticized the federal response to Katrina at the time.

This past week, he jumped into another fray, announcing legal proceedings to oust Amorello, demanding more power over the Big Dig, and dominating much of the weeks news coverage.

Democrats fumed, saying the governor was being opportunistic. ``It seems that every time there's a traffic jam on the Pike, he's calling for this man's resignation," US Representative Stephen F. Lynch, a South Boston Democrat, said in a telephone interview. ``I expect more out of our governor than just that. I don't think that calling for Matt Amorello's resignation is the same as governing.

But less than eight hours after Romney proposed legislation to take over much of the Big Dig oversight, the Democrat-run Legislature passed his bill.

After a briefing Friday morning, he was rattling off details about Big Dig routes and construction methods .

With last week's tragedy the first such fatality directly attributable to Big Dig flaws all over the national news, it's likely to be a double-edged sword for Romney as he seeks to court Republican primary voters around the country, observers said.

``To the extent that coming out of this people say: `That Mitt Romney, he's a take-charge guy. There was a problem, and he didn't mess around with it,' that would be a plus," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. ``As you know, the downside is that when he says: `I want the responsibility, I want to deal with this' he's now on the hook."

Fred Bayles, a Boston University journalism professor who covered the Big Dig for the Associated Press and USA Today, said Romney also could face questions about how this could have happened under his watch.

``On one side he comes across looking good . . . and I can already see the campaign ads, Bayles said. But ``I am sure that when he goes into some of the primary states, [opponents] will raise this and say, `Well, wasn't this under you before the accident?' "

Indeed, some critics contend that Romney, despite his repeated protests that the Turnpike Authority is an independent agency largely outside his purview, could have done more before now to ensure the safety of the Big Dig.

``He's absolutely dropped the ball," said state Senator Marc R. Pacheco, Democrat of Taunton. ``The governor's pointing a finger at everybody. I suggest he take a look in the mirror . . . The executive branch has had the power to do the work itself."

But under the new law there's no confusion: Romney has won control over inspections of the whole project and over the reopening of the stretch of Interstate 90 tunnel where Milena Del Valle of Jamaica Plain was killed on her way to the airport.

Romney and his administration must first inspect and, possibly, repair sections of tunnel that could pose the same risk.

When all the tunnels are up and running again, which could take months, the administration intends to launch a safety assessment of the entire Big Dig, for which the state has set aside up to $20 million. It's unclear what Romney's specific role will be or how often he will meet with Big Dig managers, but his comments suggest he will be heavily involved.

The governor has said several times over the past week that he has wanted his administration to have this kind of control at many points during his tenure as governor. ``For the past several years, I've tried to get my hands on responsibility for overseeing the Big Dig and the turnpike, and I have been frustrated at every turn," Romney told reporters Thursday.

So the new law means the governor cannot harp as much on the man who's become, at least to Romney, the bête noire of the Big Dig: Amorello , who has seen his support from political leaders erode but refused to step aside.

(Romney announced this week that he will seek Amorello's ouster through the courts by arguing that he's no longer fit to hold the job.)

``He's still head of the Turnpike Authority, but in terms of the inspections, the entire inspection process is under the direction of [Transportation] Secretary [John] Cogliano, and he reports to me," Romney said Friday morning as he signed the bill. ``So, ultimately, me."

Or at least through December. At that point, Romney leaves the corner office to the next governor.

One of those possible successors, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, stood with Romney and said she'd welcome the oversight responsibility . ``I am very grateful that the Legislature has passed this new legislation enabling the governor and John Cogliano to genuinely do the review that's necessary to restore confidence in the safety of the tunnels," Healey said. ``And were I to be elected in November, I would have a much higher level of confidence in the tunnels' safety than otherwise."

Should Romney decide to pursue a presidential campaign, one of his Republican primary opponents could be one of the Big Dig's most vocal critics: Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has alleged that Massachusetts' political clout has allowed what once was a $2 billion project to balloon more than seven fold, to $14.6 billion.

The huge cost increases occurred, however, before Romney took office in 2003.

Staff writer Russell Nichols contributed to this report. Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.