Romney says he'd bring new approach

BOSTON — For Mitt Romney, the multimillionaire venture capitalist turned Olympic savior turned politician, all is going according to plan.

With an eye-popping $21 million raised in the first quarter of this year for his presidential campaign and a steady stream of television advertising, the one-term former governor of Massachusetts has caught the attention of both voters and political insiders. Star turns at the first two Republican debates gave his candidacy yet another shot of credibility.

And now, recent polls in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire show Romney surging with a double-digit lead over Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The Des Moines Register put Romney's standing at 30 percent, 12 points ahead of McCain and 13 points over Giuliani. A Zogby poll in New Hampshire shows Romney at 35 percent, with both McCain and Giuliani at just 19.

At Fenway Park Monday, during an interview in a corporate skybox along the first-base line, Romney said the administration's missteps in Iraq may have prolonged American involvement there and his own approach to decisionmaking could have shortened it.

"I think we made a number of miscalculations in the Iraq war," he said, sitting forward in a brown leather club chair. "I think we were underprepared for what actually existed in Iraq. We were underplanned for what we would do when Saddam Hussein was replaced. We undermanaged the troops, so we have created many of the difficulties and extended the conflict longer than may have been necessary."

With an MBA from Harvard and a career as a business consultant and then investor, Romney, 60, brought his business training to bear on Massachusetts, imposing highly specific benchmarks on state agencies and programs during his four years as governor. His staff says he loves listening to opposing points of view and debating policy options.

"My approach is a highly deliberative, data-driven approach, drawing on the expertise of people who vehemently disagree with each other, who state their case, who argue their position with data and sound analysis and then following that deliberative process we can make a decision, or if necessary, I can make it alone," he said.

"That process could have helped us understand better the risks of going into Iraq so that we could have prevented some of the downsides from occurring," Romney added.

But despite his self-proclaimed emphasis on accountability, he declined to assign blame or responsibility for the war's failures — though he said he's certain Bush accepts responsibility as commander-in-chief.