NEW YORK — Wednesday night's GOP festivities included a prime-time address by Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a former Utahn and GOP moderate who now finds himself a rising star in the party.

Romney laid into John Kerry, included a reference to the Democrat's wife who inherited a Heinz ketchup fortune, and also spoke on same-sex marriage.

"I respect his four months under enemy fire in Vietnam," Romney said of John Kerry's military service. "No, it's John Kerry's record in his nearly 40 years since Vietnam that's the question. . . . I don't want presidential leadership that comes in 57 varieties. I want a strong president who stands his ground, I want George W. Bush."

Like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who spoke Tuesday night, Romney urged tolerance and respect "for all God's children, regardless of their differences and choices."

"At the same time, because every child deserves a mother and a father, we step forward by recognizing that marriage is between a man and a woman," he added.

Romney used his speech to invoke the spirit and patriotism of the 2002 Winter Olympics, which he steered to a successful conclusion just 18 months ago, by recalling the opening ceremonies when the American flag that had flown at the World Trade Center on 9/11 was marched into the stadium.

When a gust of wind lifted the flag, speedskater Derek Parra told Romney it was from the men and women who had "paid the ultimate price for America's freedoms, a breath from above that stirred the hearts of those of us below."

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