BOSTON — As an abortion-rights advocate, Deborah Allen did not think she would find much in common with Mitt Romney. Then she heard his pitch.
If elected Massachusetts governor, Romney said in an endorsement meeting, he would "preserve and protect" legal abortion. The judges he picked would probably do the same. And then he said something so unexpected that Allen began to see Romney, a Republican whom she had considered an uncertain ally, as sincere in his search for common ground.
"You need someone like me in Washington," he said, according to Allen and two other abortion-rights activists, whose group was deciding whether to endorse Romney in the 2002 race for governor. Though running for state office, Romney hinted at national ambitions and said he would soften the GOP's position on abortion. The Republians' hard-line stance, he said, was "killing them."
Mitt Romney: A biographical box that accompanied a Sunday Section A article about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he lives in Benton, Mass. He lives in Belmont, Mass.
Today, Romney is running for president and promising to pull the Republican Party in the opposite direction, returning it to the conservative principles of Ronald Reagan. He has renounced his support for abortion rights and has shifted his language on gay rights, campaign finance and other issues, bringing him more in step with Republican voters. He mocks Massachusetts, the state he led until January, as "sort of San Francisco East, Nancy Pelosi-style."
Though Romney's policy shifts have become widely known, his meetings with activists for abortion rights and other causes -- which have received far less attention -- show he put much work into winning support from Massachusetts' liberal establishment only a few years ago.
Making personal appeals on the state's liberal touchstones -- gay rights, abortion rights and the environment -- Romney developed a persuasive style, convincing audiences that his passion matched theirs and that he was committed to their causes.
He impressed environmentalists by using rhetoric sharper than theirs. He met gay-rights activists on their turf, in a restaurant attached to a popular gay bar, and told skeptics he would be a "good voice" and a moderating force within his party.
And in many cases, he said his commitment had been cemented by watching the suffering of someone dear to him: a grandchild whose asthma left him worried about air pollution; his wife's multiple sclerosis, which had him placing hope in embryonic stem cell research; the death of a distant relative in an illegal abortion, convincing him that the procedure needed to remain legal.
