Romney book self-serving, disappointing

TURNAROUND: CRISIS, LEADERSHIP AND THE OLYMPIC GAMES, by Mitt Romney, Regnery, 396 pages, $27.95.

It has not been long enough for most of us to forget that Mitt Romney was the "white knight" who rode in to save the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics from corruption and financial ruin.

Even those who may have found him annoyingly handsome and rich and LDS have to admit that he performed a difficult task smoothly, pulling it out of the fire.

But it seems even more annoying that he has written about it so soon, even before he completes his second year as governor of Massachusetts.

The book jacket of "Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games" shows Romney in a drop-dead gorgeous photo, wearing an Olympic jacket with snow flakes hanging in his perfect hair — and at the top, his name jumps out in huge letters, preceded by "Governor of Massachusetts."

It looks for all the world like a campaign biography, perhaps aimed at the presidency in 2008.

It may be a little too soon for this approach, especially since Romney's first year and a half of running things in Massachusetts has not earned him enormous popularity. He came into the office, like Michael Dukakis before him, with the promise of tightening the belt of the commonwealth, and he has managed to offend virtually every interest group.

Massachusetts voters taught Dukakis a lesson by rejecting him for re-election after one term (although he made a comeback four years later). The same thing could very well happen to Romney.

But Romney is a political neophyte in his late 50s, alert to the fact that the Republicans will need a presidential candidate in 2008; it's his window of opportunity.

Hence, the book — although it is a mystery as to why he would choose one of the most right-wing presses in the country to publish it. He is enough in the news that many more reputable publishers should have been interested.

Romney uses a ghost writer — Timothy Robinson — who gets no credit on the cover and only brief mention inside. During the opening pages, Romney protests too much that he had no interest in running the Olympics, bending over backward in his effort to get out of it. Plus, once he became the CEO, he had no thought that doing so might help get him get the attention he needed to run either for governor of Massachusetts (his home for more than 30 years) or Utah, where he went to school and has a second home in Park City.