"He has vision and he has a vision married to accomplishment," said McIntyre, who brought her 9-year-old son, David Culliton, to the event. "It is easy when you are untested to stand up and give your vision and use words, but when you can stand up and marry your vision to hard data on what you have accomplished as chief executive of a state, it's a pretty compelling message."

Inside the Tourism Building at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Ryan Miller, who was joined by his wife, Brenda, and their almost 1-year-old and 2-year-old sons at Romney's speech, said "he is in line with everything I care about."

In laying out his basic beliefs, Romney said he believes in the "sanctity of human life" and that the American family can be made stronger by "marriage before children" and "a mother and a father in the life of every child."

The phases translate that he is against abortion and against gay marriage, hot-button topics in his candidacy because he has had different positions in the past.

Gary Glenn of Midland, Mich., said it is "suspiciously convenient" that Romney now takes these positions, and he doubts they are genuine. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, another Republican candidate, supports abortion rights and "has marched in gay pride parades," Glenn noted, so Romney's sudden change of heart might be intended to appeal to voters Giuliani will turn off.

"I have never seen a candidate in all my life who showed the audacity of portraying himself as something that is so dramatically opposite from his record as a politician in Massachusetts," said Glenn, who is president of the American Family Association of Michigan and chairman of the Campaign for Michigan families, although he emphasized he was not speaking on their behalf.

Romney said he changed his mind on abortion two years ago after saying for years he was not against it because a family member had died from an illegal abortion years ago.

"After being raised in a politically active and aware family, running for the U.S. Senate and governor and exhaustively studying every angle of every issue, including abortion," Glenn said, "Romney asks pro-life voters to believe that 40 million abortions in his lifetime couldn't dent his conscience, but alleged comments by a Harvard scientist about disposing of stem cells, which the scientist denies, led Romney to finally discover his core values at age 57 and realize that abortion on demand had 'cheapened the sanctity of human life."'

Romney has also worked in favor of gay rights issues in the past, which Glenn said will not get past social conservative voters.

But Karen York of Essex, Iowa, said Romney "says what he believes."

"I don't think he is one of these politicians who says what he thinks the people what to hear and when he is with another group of people he says what they want to hear," Essex said. "I think he speaks from his heart."