Mitt Romney: the man behind the perma-smile

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It has been a rum old fortnight for the former governor of Massachusetts. Since 2007 he has been on the campaign trail virtually without pause, laying down a nationwide network of volunteers, fundraisers and supporters that his rivals – Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul – can only dream of. In the tradition of American politics, where money and political influence do the talking, the Republican nomination rightfully belongs to him. Yet it is proving heavy going. Core Republican voters continue to distrust him, turning restlessly to a succession of alternatives. They have toyed with Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – the current bearer of the Not-Mitt-Romney mantle.

As the polls open on Tuesday in the potentially decisive primary vote in Florida, Romney remains the putative frontrunner. Most pundits believe he will weather the storm – Hurricane Newt, you might call it – and go on to face Barack Obama in the presidential election on 6 November. But after all the battering he has taken this month, you have to wonder. Why do his own people seem to dislike him so much? And who is this man who could become leader of the most powerful nation on earth, anyway?

Romney's campaigning style is not as dire as it was four years ago, whenhe had all the panache of a donkey. This time round, his stump speech is still scripted to death, to the extent that once you have heard him deliver it a few times you can mouth along to it like a pop song. But he is loosened up, discarding tie and suit for jeans and gingham and with his wife, Ann, on his arm. Nonetheless, a nagging disconnect remains. As a Boston business acquaintance puts it in Ronald Scott's biography of Romney: "There's no heart, like the Tin Man."

Even those who know Romney well, such as Bob Bennett, US senator for Utah until last year, agree he can come across as rather detached. Bennett says that Romney's true passion is for problem solving and number crunching, skills he picked up at Harvard Business School and developed as a management consultant at Bain & Co.

"Mitt loves to wallow in the data," Bennett says. "His first instinct is to say: 'Show me the data, let's work out the problem.' It's an accountant's mentality – he doesn't have the habit of raising his head and giving a smile to a passer-by."

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Romney first ran for political office in 1994, when he tried to wrestle the Massachusetts senate seat from Teddy Kennedy. He lost, unsurprisingly, having been pummelled by Democratic attack ads that focused on two perceived weaknesses – his tendency to flip flop on policies, and his ruthlessness as a businessman. Remarkably, 18 years later exactly the same two accusations continue to dog the candidate. The only difference this time is that the cries of flip-flopper and evil entrepreneur have come from rivals within his own party and from the diametrically opposed direction.

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Which brings us to the biggest question of all about Romney. It is a fair bet that over the next month or two he will slug his way to the Republican nomination, overcoming Gingrich through sheer – as befits a data wonk – force of numbers. So what kind of adversary will he be when he goes up against Obama come the presidential election proper?

The first point to make is that he should not be underestimated. He may come across as Widow Twankey on the campaign stump, but he fights hard and he fights dirty. He has neutralised much of the Gingrich threat through a blitzkrieg of negative TV advertising that was impressive even by America's sullied standards. In Florida alone he has spent almost $14m (£9m) on attack ads, $8m (£5m) of that through Restore Our Future, a Super Pac, or political action committee, that Romney pretends he has nothing to do with but is run by his former advisers. Over the past 10 days he has eviscerated Gingrich, depicting him as a lobbyist for the much-hated mortgage giant Freddie Mac and virtually accusing him of lying about his close relationship to Ronald Reagan. The assault was surgical, brutal and chillingly effective. And all the while, Romney kept that perma-smile glued to his face.

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