In an unsuccessful 1994 race against Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Romney said abortion should be "safe and legal." He is now a strong critic of abortion and has taken conservative positions on other issues as well.

"Romney ran as a moderate Republican twice, and he's now gone to the right on stem-cell research, the environment, gay rights, abortion — virtually everything you can think of," said Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Barney Frank. "Either he was blatantly lying to people to get elected, or he just decided because the Republican Party is where it is today, he wants to be the right-wing alternative to McCain."

Another sensitive subject for Romney is his religious faith. In a June Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll, more than a third of registered voters said they wouldn't vote for a Mormon for president. Soon after he joins the race, he's expected to make a statement about his Mormon beliefs along the lines of John F. Kennedy's 1960 remarks about the primacy of public service over Vatican authority.

"You can disarm your enemies by being very forthright," said George Landrith, a Mormon bishop and former Virginia congressional candidate. "They will look petty and small if they keep hammering" on the topic.

In other areas, Romney is an amalgam of by-the-book Bushism and Northeastern pragmatism. In April, he signed a measure requiring Massachusetts residents to have health insurance by July 1, 2007, making his state the first to mandate universal coverage; his nationwide proposal aims for universal coverage, a goal of many Democrats, and provides government subsidies for low-income people.

"Romney took on a huge issue that nobody could fix and fixed it," said Washington lobbyist Ron Kaufman, former political director under President George H.W. Bush and now a Romney adviser.

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E-mail: hprzybyla@bloomberg.net.