Phil Burress, the president of the Cincinnati-based group Citizens for Community Values and a participant in Friday's summit, said he isn't convinced Romney is the genuine article. He said he leaned over to someone sitting next to him during Romney's speech and said, "I think I'm looking at a Stepford husband."

"Shallow voters will love Mitt Romney, and the deep voters might, too, once we know what his issues are," Burress said.

Another participant, Molly Smith, a 54-year-old from Cleveland, said she is concerned about what she called Romney's changeover on abortion. "Was it a real change?" she asked, "or because he wants to run for president?"

One conservative activist in Michigan, Gary Glenn, has been a thorn in Romney's side for more than a year. Glenn distributed a blistering critique at the Michigan Republican Party convention this summer in which he derided what he called Romney's "conservative masquerade."

The Values Voter Summit wasn't the only appeal to conservatives that Romney made in Washington this week. On Thursday, he was invited to address 25 to 30 conservative House members at a weekly luncheon hosted by US Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia.

Kingston said Romney "seemed to have the same values" as the group and made a very positive impression. Kingston agreed that Romney was trying to move into the role opposite McCain that Allen once occupied.

"I think the other side of the equation is, you've got members 1/8of Congress 3/8 looking for somebody to step into it," Kingston said.

With South Carolina holding the first Southern primary in 2008, it may be there that Romney sees his strategy tested the most.

"He's played very well here so far, but whether you would bill him as the alternative to McCain ... I don't necessarily think a lot of these people think of him that way," said Neal Thigpen, a professor of political science at Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C. But, Thigpen said, "there are party regulars who just don't like McCain, and they may find Romney an appealing alternative."