Waiting for Mitt the Moderate The reassuring thing about Mitt Romney is that for most of his life he probably wouldn't have voted for today's Mitt Romney. This is a man who registered as a Republican only in preparation for his 1994 Senate campaign against Edward Kennedy; previously, Romney had registered as an independent. As recently as 2002, in his successful run for governor of Massachusetts, he described himself this way: "People recognize that I am not a partisan Republican, that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive." That was accurate, and Romney became an excellent, moderate and pragmatic governor of Massachusetts. But then, in 2005, he apparently began to fancy himself as Republican presidential timber and started veering to the right in what we can all pray was a cynical, unprincipled pander. This does, at least, furnish opportunities for political humor. "Mitt Romney will face his fiercest ideological opponent," Conan O'Brien has suggested. Himself from four years ago. Jay Leno offered: "Well, the presidential race is getting interesting. In an effort to clear up his reputation as a flip-flopper, Mitt Romney will give a speech on health care. And then, right afterward, he'll give a five-minute rebuttal. Now that he has won the Iowa caucuses, Romney's chances for winning the Republican nomination are better than 80 percent, according to the betting site Intrade. For the general election, Intrade predicts that the Republican nominee (whomever it ends up being) has a 46 percent chance of winning the presidency in November. The Democrat, presumably Barack Obama, has a 52 percent chance of winning, it says. The upshot is that Romney, assuming that he continues his ascent between now and the primaries" Super Tuesday on March 6, will soon have to make a final flip - back to his old self. The narrative of a flip-flopper has been used effectively in the past against Democrats such as Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. In the 1992 Democratic primaries, Paul Tsongas accused Bill Clinton of being a "pander bear." Romney should be forewarned: once the narrative gets started, it feeds itself. The Democratic National Committee has already released a slick four-minute video that plays to this theme by excoriating Romney for his gymnastics: "Mitt Romney, unparalleled flip-flopper, has proved he is his own toughest opponent on the issues," the Democrats write on MittvMitt.com, where the video is housed. The one thing Mitt and Mitt can agree on? That they want to be president - so Romney will say and do whatever it takes to get elected, no matter how contradictory. It's true that Romney has clearly shifted positions on abortion - apparently a calculated reversal so that he could compete in Republican presidential primaries - and on assault weapons, tax pledges and the legacy of President Ronald Reagan. And he ties himself in knots explaining why he opposes a national health care plan modeled on the Massachusetts plan that became law when he was governor. But the Democratic claims of constant inconstancy seem exaggerated. The excellent Web site FactCheck.org found that most of the accusations in the Democrats" video were dubious. Typically, Romney had a fairly complex position, and the Democrats caricatured it to portray a flip that wasn't there or that was ambiguous. For example, Romney supported a stimulus, but not of the magnitude of Obama's, so it wasn't a flip-flop for him to oppose the Obama stimulus. If we do see, as I expect we will, a reversion in the direction of the Massachusetts Romney, that's a flip we should celebrate. Until the Republican primaries sucked him into its vortex, he was a pragmatist and policy wonk rather similar to Bill Clinton and President Obama but more conservative. Clinton described Romney to me as having done "a very good job" in Massachusetts. Romney was much closer to George H.W. Bush than to George W. Bush. One reason to expect a re-emergence of the traditional moderate Romney - other than that it will be expedient - is that his advisers incline in that direction. On the economy, Romney has been advised by the likes of Professor Gregory Mankiw of Harvard and Professor Glenn Hubbard of Columbia. Both are experienced, prominent figures, albeit tending conservative. In foreign affairs, Romney's advisers have included Richard Williamson, Eric Edelman, Meghan O'Sullivan, Paula Dobriansky, Daniel Senor and Dov Zakheim. These, too, are credible, respected figures. So, in the coming months, the most interesting political battle may be between Romney and Romney. Now, do we really want a chameleon as a nominee for president? That's a legitimate question. But I'd much rather have a cynical chameleon than a far-right ideologue who doesn't require contortions to appeal to Republican primary voters, who says things that Republican candidates have all been saying and, God forbid, actually means it.