Des Moines
Mitt Romney's messages on taxes, foreign policy, and social issues are perfectly attuned to mainstream Republicans. His campaign events attract upscale Republican crowds filled with professionals (both men and women), businessmen, and middle-class strivers. They're precisely the people pollsters refer to as "likely voters." The Romney crowds resemble those of George Bush senior in 1988, and Bush went on to win the Republican nomination and the presidency. To update the Bush analogy, Romney as a presidential candidate makes one think of what George W. Bush, the son, might have been like if he'd studied harder at Harvard Business School and stayed in New England.

Romney now bills himself as a "full spectrum" conservative. What he means is that he reflects the views of economic, foreign policy, and social conservatives. As such, he comes close to identifying himself as a 21st-century version of Ronald Reagan. And indeed Romney may be--but only on paper and in the minds of his strategists.

There's a painful truth about Romney's candidacy: Republicans in general and conservatives in particular are resisting him in droves. This was first suggested in poll after poll that found Romney stuck in the high 20s. And it was confirmed by his dismal showing in the Iowa caucuses, in which he captured only a sliver of the conservative vote and roughly a quarter of the Republican vote overall.

Here's the profile of a Romney voter in Iowa: upper middle class, urban, someone who thinks a candidate's religion shouldn't matter. That's a pretty narrow constituency, and not only in Iowa. To win the Republican nomination, Romney has to reach well beyond that core.

The voters he needs are the ones Mike Huckabee, the guitar-strumming Baptist preacher from Arkansas, grabbed to win in Iowa. And they're the same ones who earlier rallied behind Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Their profile: lower middle class, rural, evangelical Christian.

Romney won't attract them by generating excitement--for the simple reason that he's incapable of generating excitement. His speeches are solid and forward-looking and serious and strike all the conservative notes. They qualify as thoughtful, and they stir a polite form of enthusiasm. But excitement? No. He'll have to leave that to others.

Nor is Romney in a position to artfully change his positions on issues. He moved to the right on social issues--abortion, stem cells, marriage, guns--before entering the Republican race. And he has insisted that his new take on these issues represents the real Romney.

I suspect he's right about this. He was probably a good bit more conservative than he appeared when he ran as a moderate against Democratic senator Teddy Kennedy in 1994 (he lost) and for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 (he won).

But changing any of his positions under duress now would produce two results, both bad. The first is that switching probably wouldn't help his campaign. The second is that it would inflame a press corps that already loathes Romney for moving to the right on social issues.

I've been amazed at the raw antipathy that so many otherwise reasonable people in the media feel toward Romney. The word they use is "inauthentic." But all presidential candidates are inauthentic to one degree or another. Even Mr. Straight Talk, Senator John McCain, talks differently today about tax cuts and immigration than he used to, but the press doesn't hector him about it.