Romney Seeks a Neighborly Reception

Ex-Massachusetts Governor's New Hampshire Ties Could Be a Blessing or a Curse

WOLFEBORO, N.H. -- Wes Burke does not really know Mitt Romney as the multimillionaire corporate turnaround whiz or savior of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics or presidential candidate with the reputation for changing his mind. He knows him as the guy who, on a visit to Burke's home here one Sunday, noticed water running high behind the dam on the property and then offered to go with Burke to fix the broken pump.

"He's a real person," said Burke, sporting an Indian headdress after leading a Cub Scout meeting at the Mormon temple here where Romney often worships.

Romney enjoys a home-field advantage in the New Hampshire Republican primary. He served four years as governor of Massachusetts, giving him exposure to the state's voters via the Boston television stations many of them watch, and his family has had for the past decade a house on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.

Yet gauging the depth of this advantage is no easy task, because Romney's relationship with New Hampshire is fraught with complexity. Many New Hampshire voters have mixed feelings about Massachusetts, an ambivalence that Romney may or may not be spared given that as a Republican he was fighting against his state's prevailing political tide. Then there is New Hampshire's uncertain relationship with its regular summer visitors, including a thriving community of Mormon vacationers on the Winnipesaukee.

Finally, there is Romney himself, who in his family background (roots in Michigan and Utah) and personal style (corporate power suits and nary a dropped "r") is hardly the prototypical New Englander. On the trail here, Romney seems at times almost to play down his local connections, casting himself more as a generically American business executive who just happens to have lived in the area the past few decades.

The Romney-New Hampshire dynamic stands to play a major role in the Jan. 8 primary. How much voters regard Romney as a neighbor could affect whether he carries off a resounding victory in a state that looms ever larger for him as his lead in the Iowa polls evaporates with the rise of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. At the same time, the boost Romney would get from a win here will depend on how successful his rivals are at discounting it based on his local ties.

There is plenty of recent precedent for those puzzling out the Massachusetts-New Hampshire equation. In 1988, Massachusetts governor Michael S. Dukakis won this state by 16 percentage points over his nearest rival, setting him on course to win the Democratic nomination. He said last week that the proximity was a big edge, starting with the ease of crossing the border to campaign.

"If you don't win it, you're dead. If a Massachusetts guy can't win in New Hampshire, then he can't win anywhere," Dukakis said. "We all knew that if we didn't win in New Hampshire, that people would begin to wonder what was wrong with me."

Four years later, former senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, a resident of Lowell, just across the New Hampshire border, won the Democratic primary with 35 percent, but saw the national news media discount him as a near-favorite son and instead focus on the self-anointed "comeback kid," Bill Clinton, who took second place with 26 percent. In 2004, the dynamic was scrambled by the presence of two neighbors, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and former Vermont governor Howard Dean, and Kerry's win in New Hampshire was driven more by Dean's collapse in Iowa than by regional leanings.

For Romney, the move across the border comes with an added nuance. He is appealing to New Hampshire Republicans and rightward-leaning independents, many of whom regard Massachusetts as a bastion of liberalism run amok, and some of whom moved to New Hampshire to flee what they saw as Massachusetts's high taxes and heavy regulation.

More than 90,000 people moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire between 2000 and 2005, more than 40 percent of people moving to the state from elsewhere in the country, according to the U.S. census.

"Some of us don't like people from Massachusetts. I'm from there, and I don't like it," said David DeVoi, a Republican who moved from Dedham, Mass., to New Hampshire's Lakes Region after his retirement, and who turned out to see Romney at a diner in Meredith last week. "I don't like their politics. They stink."