Ambitions grow and stances shift

In a television ad for his presidential campaign, Romney asserts, "I know how to veto. I like vetoes. I've vetoed hundreds of spending appropriations as governor."

What he doesn't say is the Legislature overrode those vetoes almost at will. When the House decided to challenge him, Romney was overridden 99.6 percent of the time: 775 to 3, according to the House minority leader's office. In the Senate, Romney was overridden every time, often unanimously.

In more than 100 instances, Democrats did not contest Romney and the vetoes stood.

He won a few victories. In 2004, the Legislature let stand Romney's veto of in-state tuition discounts at state colleges for illegal immigrants and sustained his veto of a one-year moratorium on publicly funded charter schools.

On budget line items, the vast majority of his vetoes, Romney's success waned - in his first year, lawmakers let stand 21 percent of his cuts; in his last, they restored all of them. "As the financial condition of the state improved, the Legislature was more inclined to override and spend more money," Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's spokesman, said.

But DiMasi, the Democratic speaker, pointed to dwindling Republican support: "You didn't even have to debate ... Even the Republicans voted against him."

Of 283 budget veto overrides in 2006, Romney failed to attract a single Republican vote on 81 roll calls in the Senate and 60 in the House, records show.

Media mastery

Instead of pushing his agenda through closed-door appeals to legislators, Romney used well-orchestrated media events. It was a key component of his approach to leadership, according to both supporters and opponents.

Romney's gifts as a communicator produced some triumphs, notably a drunken-driving law that he and his lieutenant governor, Kerry Healey, prodded lawmakers to toughen in 2005 by enlisting family members of victims to make emotional appeals before TV cameras.

"(Romney's) theory of government was, 'I'm going to the bully pulpit, which is the press, and beat you up so you succumb to my position,"' "' DiMasi said.

Often Romney hectored the Legislature to cut spending, but his instinct for the grand gesture produced a notable exception. After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, Romney arranged to take in 235 evacuees at a state facility on Cape Cod.

Often the Legislature ignored Romney's appeals. He failed to reinstitute the death penalty. Legislators deep-sixed his attempt to roll back the income tax rate from 5.3 to 5 percent.

One of Romney's longest-running battles with the Legislature was over the Big Dig, the $14.6 billion highway project that became a symbol of patronage and mismanagement.