The Mitt Romney who twice ran for statewide office in Massachusetts is a different politician from the Romney who will likely court New Hampshire voters in the 2008 Republican presidential primary.

As a Massachusetts candidate, Romney pledged to keep abortion "safe and legal." He called on the Republican Party to provide "more support" for the gay and lesbian community and won the support of many gay Republicans. In a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 1, he painted himself as a social moderate.

But Romney the likely presidential candidate is firmly pro-life, calling abortion the "wrong choice" except in extraordinary circumstances. In recent months, he has made headlines for his efforts to overturn same-sex marriage in the only state that allows it. This Romney recently invited the Rev. Jerry Falwell and other evangelical leaders to his home, seeking advice.

The transformation, political analysts say, is an attempt to burnish his conservative credentials and position himself to the right of Sen. John McCain and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani in the presidential contest. With social conservatives conspicuously absent from the fledgling presidential field, they say, Romney is attempting to stake out political ground.

"There's little doubt in my mind that he has toughened the public expression of his pro-life views out of political expediency," said Jon Keller, a political analyst for WBZ-TV, a Boston station with a Manchester bureau. "He just played the typical political game."

Abortion shift

Since becoming governor of Massachusetts in 2002, Romney has shored up his pro-life qualifications. Abortion, he said last year, is wrong except "in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother."

The nation's abortion laws, Romney wrote in the Boston Globe, shouldn't be controlled by "judicial mandate," a reference to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized a constitutional right to an abortion. "I wish the people of America agreed" with the pro-life position, Romney said, "and that the laws of our nation could reflect that view." In July 2005, Romney vetoed a bill that would have expanded access to the so-called morning after pill.

Romney's recent remarks were an about-face from his earlier abortion stance.

When running for statewide office in Massachusetts, Romney used personal anecdotes to illustrate his support for safe and legal abortions. During his unsuccessful 1994 campaign against U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, Romney referred to a relative who died after an illegal abortion. Ever since, "my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others," Romney said at the time.

"He would talk about his late mother, and how she was a great supporter of choice," said Keller, who has covered Romney since 1994. It was "a way of illustrating, 'I respect opposing views.' "

"He's been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly," Romney adviser Michael Murphy told the conservative National Review last year.

During the 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Romney reaffirmed his pledge to uphold the rights of women seeking abortions. He told Planned Parenthood, an abortion rights group, that he supported "the substance" of Roe v. Wade and that he would support measures to expand access to emergency contraception, according to the group. Romney's veto of the emergency contraception bill last year sparked criticism from abortion rights advocates, who accused the governor of reneging on his campaign pledge.

But Romney's staff have denied that the transformation was politically motivated. "I would characterize it as somewhat of a conversion, driven by the ethical issues inherent in the debate about embryonic stem cell research," said Peter Flaherty, Romney's former deputy chief of staff who now advises Romney's PAC.

Romney supports stem cell research, including the use of embryos left over from in vitro fertilization. But last year, he said that human embryos should never be created for the purpose of scientific research. His evolution on abortion, Romney said, is rooted in his response to the stem cell debate.

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