On Tuesday, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will formally enter the race for the 2008 Republican nomination for President. But by announcing his run for the White House in Michigan, Romney is trying to run away - far, far away - from his own moderate reign in liberal Massachusetts.
Romney, of course, is nominally from Michigan, where his father George ran American Motors prior to becoming the Governor and an unsuccessful challenger to Richard Nixon in 1968. That's not what makes Mitt Romney "the Rambler." No, Mitt Romney isn't returning to Michigan to praise his father for getting the state "moving again." Instead, Mitt hopes to shed his Boston baggage as heads into the GOP primaries so dominated by the radical right.
Mitt's immaculate conception of geography started in the early days of his presidential campaign. Addressing a GOP audience in the early primary state of South Carolina, Romney in September 2005 attacked his own state:

"Being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention...There are more Republicans in this room tonight than I have in my state!"

As Perrspectives has detailed before, Romney's problems with uber right Republican primary voters began during his failed 1994 run for the Senate against Ted Kennedy and continued with his successful 2002 gubernatorial bid. Hoping to appease progressive voters in Massachusetts wary of his pro-life Mormon past, Romney flip-flopped on abortion, declaring "I believe women should have the right to make their own choice." Romney successfully defused the issue in his 2002 race against Democrat Shannon O'Brien by promising to avoid changing the status quo in the Commonwealth:

"I promised that if elected, I'd call a truce - a moratorium, if you will...I vowed to veto any legislation that sought to change the existing rules...I fully respect and will fully protect a woman's right to choose."

It's no wonder that in 2005, Romney advisor Michael Murphy said of Mitt that "he's been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly."
Those gymnastics on reproductive rights may have worked with Route 128 voters in 2002, but offer a recipe for disaster with the Christian Coalition's so-called "values-voters" in the 2008 GOP primaries. Predictably, Romney began his sharp right turn. By the fall of 2005, Romney flip-flopped again on abortion, claiming that his position has "evolved" and that "my political philosophy is pro-life." The feigned outrage on same-sex marriage, the performance at the 2004 Republican National Convention, and the indignant (and overridden) veto of the Massachusetts stem cell research bill show a man quickly running back to the right in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, not Boston.
So a Bay State backdrop as an announcement venue was clearly out of the question for the ever-calculating Romney. But there was another alternative: Mitt's previous home state of Utah.
Romney, after all, was credited with being the savior of the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics. Between 1999 and 2001, Mitt listed his $3.8 million Park City, Utah home as his primary residence. (That hiccup almost disqualified Mitt from seeking the Massachusetts Governor's mansion in 2002. Quickly paying back the $54,000 Utah tax break he had received helped salvage his political aspirations in 2002 - and 2008.) A Salt Lake city setting for the launch of Romney '08 would have been perfectly fitting.
Except, of course, that Utah presents another set of problems for Romney. A Utah announcement would have highlighted Romney's Mormonism, potentially a major stumbling block for both Mitt's primary and general election prospects. A November 2006 Rasmussen survey showed that 43% of American voters "would never" vote for a Mormon. That figure jumps to 53% for evangelical voters. (For more on the debate over Mormonism in the White House, see the New Republic's January 15 and January 29, 2007 issues.)
All of which brings us to Mitt Romney's campaign kick-off this week in Michigan. On Tuesday, Americans will be introduced to Romney as the Zelig of election '08, a human chameleon whose positions change with the latitude, longitude and time zone. Think of his campaign as "Where in the World is Mitt Romney?"
Too bad being President of the United States isn't a game.