Romney is photogenic, articulate, fast on his feet, and media-savvy. Reporters digging, as they do, for dirt in the private and business lives of aspiring politicians have so far found him to be "Mr. Clean." He is no stranger to politics. His father, George Romney, was the boss of American Motors before becoming governor of Michigan. Mitt Romney ran for the Senate in Massachusetts in 1994, losing to the unbeatable Ted Kennedy but giving him a stiff race in the process. His religious background as a nondrinking, nonsmoking Mormon did not seem to impair his candidacy in that contest, and ever since the rise of the Roman Catholic Kennedys in politics, religion seems to have faded as a negative factor.

Winning the Republican nomination for president from a liberal state like Massachusetts would be a challenge. Romney could hardly expect to bring in Democratic Massachusetts for the Republican Party, but his skill in attracting support from individual Democrats as well as Republicans in that state could be cited as a factor in his cross-party appeal to a national audience. He would also advance his reputation as a "turnaround guy" in the private sector, the Olympics, and Massachusetts government as credentials for managing the nation's economy. Indeed, the book he has just written and published is titled "Turnaround." Its subtitle is "Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games," not a bad pitch from a man who says he is eyeing another run for the governorship in 2006 but could be countenancing a run for the presidency in 2008. Indeed, some Boston pols are suggesting that Romney might be whisked away long before then for a Cabinet post in a second-term Bush administration. With such strong conservative positions as the stand he has taken in Massachusetts on same-sex marriage, he has clearly caught the eye of the Bush White House and been recruited to campaign for the Bush-Cheney ticket.

Romney may not yet get the national devotion afforded John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, but he surely is being talked about as a contender in 2008.

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John Hughes is editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret Morning News. He is a former editor of the Christian Science Monitor, which syndicates this column. E-mail: hughes@desnews.com