Former Massachusetts treasurer Timothy P. Cahill

Putting a new spin on an old sobriquet, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced charges against Goldman Sachs and a former vice president at the firm for making undisclosed contributions to the gubernatorial campaign of a former Massachusetts state treasurer.

Goldman—sometimes referred to as "Government Sachs" because former executives (Bob Rubin, Josh Bolten, Hank Paulson ... it goes back to Sidney Weinberg, doesn't it?) have a habit of going to work in Washington—found itself in the SEC's sights after a former Goldman vice president named Neil M.M. Morrison lent a hand to then Massachusetts Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, who was running for governor.

According to the agency, Mr. Morrison was "substantially involved" in Mr. Cahill's campaign from November 2008 to October 2010, during which period Goldman was involved in underwriting 30 debt offerings for the state:

Morrison at times conducted campaign activities from the Goldman Sachs office during work hours and using the firm’s phones and e-mail. Morrison’s use of Goldman Sachs work time and resources for campaign activities constituted valuable in-kind campaign contributions to Cahill that were attributable to Goldman Sachs and disqualified the firm from engaging in municipal underwriting business with certain Massachusetts municipal issuers for two years after the contributions. Nevertheless, Goldman Sachs subsequently participated in 30 prohibited underwritings with Massachusetts issuers and earned more than $7.5 million in underwriting fees.

Which would all seem a little more innocuous—it would have to be pretty good campaign advice to be worth rewarding with underwriting business, wouldn't it?— if not for emails like this, from Mr. Morrison to a deputy treasurer in Mr. Cahill's office:

“From my standpoint as an advisor/consultant/friend I am saying, PLEASE don’t give these [underwriter] slots away willy-nilly. You are in the fight of your lives and need to reward loyalty and encourage friendship. If people aren’t willing to be creative with their support then they shouldn’t expect business. This has to be a political decision.”

And this one, from Mr. Morrison to a campaign official:

“I am staying in banking and don’t want a story that says that I am helping Cahill, who is giving me banking business. If that came out, I’m sure I wouldn’t get any more business.”

Goldman agreed to pay more than $11 million in fines and disgorgement of fees earned from Massachusetts without admitting to or denying the SEC's finding. The government's case against Mr. Morrison is ongoing, according to the statement.

But the seriousness of his condition raises the possibility that he may soon step down from office. And if that happens, it would mean a shake-up for what has been one of the most stable Congressional delegations in the country, one that would confront several entrenched politicians with difficult career choices.

Massachusetts has been represented by the same two senators since 1984, Kennedy and John F. Kerry. That, in turn, has created something of a logjam, with all ten members of the state’s all-Democratic House delegation stuck in their safe seats—a condition that has caused paralysis further down the ballot, with various state legislators and local officials (almost all of them Democrats) blocked from a chance to run for Congress.

The only movement in the state’s Congressional delegation in the past decade came because of death (Representative Joe Moakley’s in 2001) or career frustration (Representative Marty Meehan’s decision to give up his seat last year, partly because he didn’t feel like waiting around for Kennedy or Kerry to leave).

If Kennedy were to leave his seat, the floodgates would open. Unlike most states, Massachusetts does not allow its governor to appoint an interim senator in the event of a vacancy. Instead a special election would be held within 145 to 160 days of the vacancy—meaning that if Kennedy were to exit in the near future, the special election would presumably be held in conjunction with the November general election, with the party primaries in September. The winner of the special election would serve out the remainder of Kennedy’s term, which is due to expire in 2012. If he were to leave too late for a special election to be held this November, a special election would simply be held in early 2009.

The difference in timing is critical. A November special election would force every House member who wants to run to give up his or her seat. But a special election after November would allow the House members to run while holding onto their seats, essentially giving all of them a free shot at the Senate—a recipe for a crowded fight.

You can thank John Kerry and the Massachusetts Legislature for this peculiar arrangement. Until 2004, state law called for the gubernatorial appointment of an interim senator until the next regularly scheduled election. But when it looked like Kerry might win the presidency in 2004, the state’s Democratic establishment panicked at the prospect of Republican Governor Mitt Romney picking his successor, since Romney’s choice would then have a nearly two-year head start before finally facing the voters in 2006. So the legislature changed the law.

Back in ’04, there was fairly intense jockeying among several of the state’s House members for the Kerry’s seat. But, of course, the special election never materialized. Presumably, the potential field for a special election this year would be similar, though there are two complicating factors. One is the possibility of a November special election, which would force House members to give up their seats to run. The other is the changed landscape of the House itself. Back in ’04, Republicans seemed to be in near-permanent control of the chamber, and Massachusetts’ Democrats were eager to move out. Now, with their party in charge, some of them have found new clout and prominence. Suddenly, becoming a freshman senator may not seem so alluring.

That said, here’s a look at who would be likely to run should there be a vacancy.

House members (by district):

John Olver: He definitely won’t run. Olver is 71 and virtually unknown outside of his western Massachusetts district. He has little money or clout in state politics and is generally considered the most vulnerable House member in 2012, when redistricting figures to cost the state a seat.

Richard Neal: He won’t run. The former mayor of Springfield is, like Olver, virtually unknown in the more populous east and has made no moves to suggest a statewide campaign is in his future.

Jim McGovern: He won’t run. The 48-year-old McGovern is clearly ambitious, but he has trained his sights on the House Rules Committee, where his now the second-ranking Democrat, behind New York’s 78-year-old Louise Slaughter. McGovern owes his quick career trajectory to his mentor, the late Joe Moakley, himself a former Rules chairman. Moakley was dying of cancer in 2001 when he secured a promise from the then minority leader, Richard Gephardt, to place McGovern on the committee.

Barney Frank: He may run—and he definitely would have back in ’05, had Kerry won the presidency. Since then, however, Frank has seen his influence in the House increase exponentially. With the Democrats in control, he now chairs the powerful Financial Services Committee, making him one of the Democrats’ point men on the current mortgage crisis. Frank has a built-in liberal constituency in the affluent Boston suburbs, but he would not enter a Senate race as the favorite. At 68, the odds are that he’d take a pass on a Senate campaign that would require him to risk too much.

Niki Tsongas: She could run, but probably won’t. Tsongas is the widow of former Senator Paul Tsongas, who represented the state from 1978 to 1984. Given her familiar name and her potential ability to stand out in a field full of men, Tsongas would in some ways be a natural statewide candidate. But she only won her House seat last year in a special election (and by a closer-than-expected margin at that), so the timing is poor. Plus, she is a close political ally of her House predecessor, Marty Meehan, who would almost certainly be very interested in pursuing a Senate vacancy. Tsongas would certainly yield to him if it came to it.

John Tierney: He could run. The 56-year-old Tierney, a former divorce lawyer who was elected to represent the state’s North Shore in 1996, is not the House power player that Frank is, so he might be more inclined to risk his seat. But he’d be an even longer shot in a statewide race, given his lack of name recognition and a relatively weak political organization. If he’s forced to choose, Tierney would probably conclude that a safe House seat is good enough.

Ed Markey: He’d be very tempted. Markey is the dean of the Massachusetts delegation, first elected in 1976 when he was 30. And twice in that time, he has seemed ready to take a shot at the Senate. In 1984, he entered the race to succeed Tsongas, only to abruptly pull out when his prospects seemed iffy. And in 2004, he all but announced his candidacy to succeed Kerry, a bid that ended with Kerry’s loss to George W. Bush. Markey has always wanted to serve in the Senate, and a vacancy this year would represent is last realistic chance. But his seniority in the House, coupled with the Democratic takeover of the chamber, has placed the chairmanship of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee within his sights. In ’84, the prospect of being out of political office was unacceptable to Markey. He’d be more likely to take that chance today.

Michael Capuano: He won’t run. Capuano, the former mayor of Somerville who replaced Joe Kennedy in the House in 1998, has some influence there and seems more interested in running for governor sometime down the road than in pursuing a Senate seat.

Stephen Lynch: He’d probably run. Lynch, the most conservative Democrat in the state’s delegation, would appeal to the state’s working-class Catholic voters. His district includes South Boston, the Irish enclave that produced Moakley, Billy Bulger and Ray Flynn. In a crowded primary, the 53-year-old Lynch could emerge victorious by running to the right of the rest of the field.

Bill Delahunt: He might run. Delahunt showed interest in pursuing Kerry’s seat a few years back, and he lacks the internal clout of Frank and Markey that would make staying in the House more attractive. But he’d be a long shot in a statewide primary. His district, which includes the South Shore and Cape Cod, doesn’t necessarily provide him with the best base for a Democratic primary, and he is not very well known outside his district. His age—67 this summer—might work against him, too. Still, if he’s ever wanted to serve in the Senate, he might soon be presented with his one and only chance.

Other contenders:

There would be three major names to keep an eye on in the event of a vacancy:

Joe Kennedy:

Ted Kennedy’s nephew has been considered a future statewide candidate since he was elected to the House back in 1986 at the age of 34. He passed on gubernatorial bids in 1990 and 1994 and seemed certain to run in 1998, but backed out when two scandals—one involving the annulment of his first marriage and the other involving his brother Michael’s affair with an underage babysitter—forced him to reconsider. Kennedy gave up his House seat in 1998, but he hasn’t exactly disappeared from public view. He now runs Citizens Energy, the nonprofit company he originally started in 1979 to provide low-cost home heating oil to poor families. Kennedy is featured prominently in Citizens’ ads, which regularly blanket the Boston airwaves and that might as well serve as campaign spots. A chance to succeed his uncle might be the perfect occasion for Kennedy to end his retirement from elected politics.

Marty Meehan:

The 50-year-old Meehan resigned his House seat last year to become the chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. But he held onto his $5 million campaign war chest, all of which would be transferable to a statewide campaign account. The commonly held view is that Meehan simply tired of waiting in the House, where he had served since 1993, for either Kerry or Kennedy to leave their seats. His strong support from the political establishment in the Lowell area and his name recognition from his high-profile campaign finance reform efforts in the House would serve him well in a statewide effort. The biggest question would be whether a vacancy this year would come too soon, since he’s been on the job at UMass-Lowell for less than a year now.

Martha Coakley:

Coakley is following a familiar pipeline in Massachusetts politics. First, she was the district attorney in Middlesex County, the state’s largest county (running from Cambridge all the way out to Boston’s far western suburbs). Then, she parlayed that role into a winning campaign for state attorney general, an office whose last three occupants have all sought statewide office. The main question for Coakley now seems to be when she will pull the trigger on a statewide campaign. A special election for the Senate would be perfect for her, since she wouldn’t have to risk her day job, (she’s not up for reelection until 2010). And as probably the only woman in the field, she would stand out easily from her all-male rivals. She’d be a very logical candidate.

In winning Massachusetts handily, Romney has averted an embarrassing loss. And if he can wins several other states tonight --- like California -- he could be in position to accuse Romney of having taken victory for granted in an effort to score a vanity win in Massachusetts.

The other states that were just called on the Republican side -- Connecticut, New Jersey and Illinois -- all went to McCain, outcomes that aren't at all surprising.

Earlier, down on the seaport at the World Financial Center, the line to go see Barack Obama speak stretched, four and eight wide, for at least half a mile, curving along the shore and up and over a bridge to downtown. Fortunately there wasn't much of a breeze off the water, but the youngsters in line (and they are young!) were shouting and hopping to keep warm. Seriously.

Madness!

In an admirably blunt assessment of the situation, he told me he thinks Obama is surging, and that Clinton-fatigue may be a factor.

“He’s coming on strong,” said Collins, a 44-year-old resident of South Boston who works for the city’s department of transportation. “I think people are tired of the Bushes and the Clintons. They want something new.”

“At the beginning, I thought she was going to run away with it,” said Collins.

He estimated that the people he was calling broke between Clinton and Obama “about 50-50.”

“There are differences between me and my opponent—differences in approach and vision an understanding of what it is going to take to make the changes that we want,” said Clinton. “You know change is hard. I wish it were easy. I wish all you had to do was just say it’s going to happen, and it would materialize. But it’s going to take hard work. It’s going to take every single one of us being committed to a different future for our children.”

“And unity is important, but unity for what, is more important,” said Clinton. “Unity for a strong and prosperous middle class?”

Moving up the date of New York's Presidential primary may mean seeing less of Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.

Democrat Matthew Titone and Republican Lou Tobacco won special elections yesterday for the state Assembly.

Hillary will be raising money privately in Massachusetts.

Barack Obama has a new way of campaigning in New Hampshire.

An online survey of potential voters -- the one pushed hard all day yesterday by Drudge -- showed that 50 percent of respondents would not vote for Hillary Clinton.

Rudy Giuliani said that setting a timetable for pulling out of Iraq "made no sense to me."

Mike Bloomberg defended the police surveillance leading up to the Republican National Convention in 2004.

The police will have to go "hat-in-hand" to bus and rail agencies to get federally authorized money to protect the mass transit system.

The MTA will stop giving health care to its board members, a practice AG Andrew Cuomo said shouldn't have been allowed.

-- Azi Paybarah

On Monday, Feb. 12, friends and family of first-time author Bridie Clark, whose novel Because She Can was inspired by her experiences working for fallen publishing mogul Judith Regan, gathered at a private Soho penthouse to celebrate the book’s publication. Expected guests Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair (which bought first-serial rights), and Jane Friedman, the chief executive of HarperCollins (and Ms. Regan’s triumphant adversary), were not in attendance, but Ms. Clark appeared to be enjoying her moment in the spotlight nonetheless. Wearing a silk gold-brocade dress, her dark hair up in a dramatic, Jacqueline Susann–esque pouf, she thanked her parents and grandparents from atop a staircase in the apartment, then descended to speak with The Transom.

“I think boss-from-hell stories really resonate today,” said Ms. Clark, 29, adding that she loved the comparisons being made between Because She Can and The Devil Wears Prada. (Of course she does! As of this writing, though, Because She Can has not yet hit best-seller lists, nor been optioned for a big Hollywood movie starring a Meryl Streep equivalent.) “There’s so many women that are so heavily invested in their careers now and dealing with nightmare bosses that it’s become such a universal experience. I think there’s room for a few books on the same theme.”

Ms. Clark’s editor on Because She Can, Karen Kosztolnyik, said: “A lot of people have been construing that the book was about Judith Regan. But it’s really a compilation of all of her experiences, as well as friends of hers who’ve worked for overly demanding bosses.”

The author, whose résumé includes brief stints at Simon & Schuster as well as Vanity Fair and New York magazine, said that her decision to quit ReganBooks had little to do with anything other than her wanting to pursue her lifelong ambition to be a writer. “I really left because I wanted to write a book,” she said. “Any bad experience is material. There’s humor in the tough things, and there’s humor in difficult work situations and in life—everything.”

The morning after the party, a breathy, anonymous male tipster alerted The Transom to one particularly tough thing in Ms. Clark’s life: the indictment of her younger brother, Holy Cross graduate Daniel Clark, on charges of manslaughter and assault and battery in the death of Jonathan R. Duchatellier after a May 2002 brawl in Worcester, Mass. In a scandal that might have been plucked from the pages of—well, a ReganBook, Mr. Clark pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of misdemeanor assault and battery in October of 2004, right about the time that Ms. Clark decided to quit and write Because She Can, a task she accomplished between the months of November 2004 and April 2005. What a feat of compartmentalization, the tipster tartly hissed.

“I think this probably had a tremendous impact on the Clark family, because he didn’t do it,” said Michael C. Wilcox, whose law firm, Aloise & Wilcox, represented Mr. Clark in the criminal case and in the ongoing civil suit against him. “He was pretty much an all-American boy—captain of the football team, exemplary student—who went to break up a fight. The only reason he pleaded to battery was because I think he felt a responsibility to his family to get beyond this. It was tearing them apart.”

Ms. Clark, meanwhile, issued a statement via her publicist at Ken Sunshine Consultants. “My family was going through a difficult and very personal period, but it had absolutely no bearing on my decision to leave Regan,” it read. “I left ReganBooks simply because I wanted to write my own book. There were no other factors contributing to my decision—except, of course, the added benefit of not having to work there anymore.”

Swell Deflates: Rowley vs. Rosenzweig, Round 1

At the dawn of the millennium, designer Cynthia Rowley and editor-writer Ilene Rosenzweig had what seemed to be the quintessential New York City female friendship. They went to lots of parties, they gave lots of parties, and in 2003 they started their own line of budget lifestyle accoutrements for Target, called Swell. The sad dregs of this collaboration, which also produced two books, are now being remaindered on the chain store’s Web site, under “Clearance”: a square, geometrically patterned accent pillow, marked down from $19.99 to $4.99, and some sheer white drapes, down to $7.49 from $29.99.

In the immortal words of Fred Willard from Best in Show: “Wha’ happened?”

“That was a, that was just a, uh, you know, a one-off kind of thing,” said Ms. Rowley on the phone on Feb. 12, a few days after her retro-futuristic fall 2007 collection was unveiled at Gotham Hall before an audience that included Ms. Rowley’s famous friends Alan Cumming, Tatum O’Neal and Molly Shannon. It was inspired by a Chinese movie released last year called Curse of the Golden Flower. “The gold army and the silver army get into this huge battle and fight it out,” the designer explained, “and I thought that that was a really cool thing, having gold fight silver, and this mix or clash of all the metals.”

What about her clash with Ms. Rosenzweig, alluded to in Page Six last September? “I definitely wouldn’t comment on that, and, you know, she moved to L.A. and has her own career—so that’s all I’ll say,” Ms. Rowley said. She wouldn’t completely slam the door on Swell, shrugging, “I guess you never know.”

Reached in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband, Rick Marin, and their two young sons, Diego and Kingsley, Ms. Rosenzweig, a former editor at The New York Times’ Sunday Styles section, said: “Well, I don’t really want to get into it.” She said she and Mr. Marin are working on a feature-length romantic comedy set in Manhattan’s financial district, and a similarly themed television series for Lifetime. “I don’t dream of being a designer,” she said. “I dream of being a great, you know, a screenwriter, TV writer, novelist—that kind of stuff.”

A Target spokeswoman, meanwhile, said the line’s demise was “purely intentional.”

—Nicole Brydson

Halle Berry’s Glistening Slice of Canadian Bacon

Montreal-born male model Gabriel Aubry, one of the stars of the upcoming VH1 reality show The Agency, was at the premiere party on Wednesday, Feb. 7, at the Bryant Park Hotel. “It’s about what goes on behind the scenes in the making of a model,” said Mr. Aubry, 29, who is 6-foot-2 and 180 pounds, with a 38-inch chest. “Which is a lot of screaming, a lot of hustling, a lot of mind games …. ”

Mr. Aubry’s angular profile has been raised since he began dating Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry over a year ago. “I was already doing pretty well before that, so it didn’t really change anything,” Mr. Aubry protested. “It’s like two normal people meeting each other—it wasn’t really that vanity thing.

“And I’m not engaged,” he added emphatically.

Mr. Aubry’s agent, Sean Patterson, the president of Wihelmina and also a star of the show, described how he met his client at a hotel in Milan. “He sat down. I was with three of my biggest stars at the time,” Mr. Patterson said. “He said when he saw who I was with—Mark Vanderloo, Jason Lewis, who is also an actor, and Alex Lundqvist; and he knew he wanted to be with Wilhelmina—but the No. 1 thing on his mind was that he wanted a glass of fresh orange juice. He was struggling so much that he didn’t have the money to buy orange juice.”

“I only had concentrate before that,” Mr. Aubry explained. “But this was the real thing.”

Factory Girl Director Gets the Boot from the Four Seasons

On Feb. 1, George Hickenlooper, the director of Factory Girl, was forcibly ejected from a party in oil heir and Mischa Barton–ex Brandon Davis’ suite at the Four Seasons hotel in Manhattan.

“He had a whole posse of French sycophants hanging all over him,” Mr. Hickenlooper said of Mr. Davis, who spent part of last year at the $75,000-per-month Passages Malibu rehab center. “Maybe they had something to do with Brandon’s dealing in the art world, because he kept going on about art.”

Mr. Hickenlooper said one of the Frenchmen took an interest in a female friend and began “aggressively hitting on her.” When the director asked the Frog to “back off,” a battle of nations ensued.

“He starts insulting my American-ness,” Mr. Hickenlooper recalled, “saying all kinds of crap, calling me a Bush warmonger. I said, ‘What, are you joking? France hasn’t contributed anything to the last 100 years except to give us the French New Wave! And you’re hitting on this girl with as much enthusiasm as the French collaborated with the Nazis!”

He added: “Brandon was just sitting there with a very medicated look on his face.”

Another source suggested that the heightened belligerence in the room could be attributable to Mr. Davis’ literally throwing around handfuls of cocaine for his guests’ consumption à la Jack Nicholson in The Departed. (“I don’t even know what you’re talking about, bro,” Mr. Davis told The Transom.)

In any event, tempers flared and security was called.

The following night, Mr. Hickenlooper once again encountered Mr. Davis and his French entourage at Bungalow 8.

“This French guy was in the same drunken stupor, and again he tried to pick a fight with me,” the director said. “Little did he know, he was on my territory. I had Disco, the bouncer, calmly escort him out.”

Cumming Attraction: Gadabout Actor Finds Domestic Bliss

Speaking of Alan Cumming, what is the puckish actor doing for Valentine’s Day?

“You know, I think I’ll take my boyfriend out—I mean my husband out—for dinner and then shag him,” said Mr. Cumming, 42, who married longtime partner Grant Shaffer, an illustrator, in a ceremony outside London in January. But he was flying solo at a West Village fête for Yoko Devereaux designer Andy Salzer on Sunday, Feb. 11.

Mr. Cumming, who will be featured in Gray Matters, a romantic comedy out later this month, said married life was “fine, thank you.” And then, with a sly grin, chirped: “Married, not buried!”

He reminisced a bit about an early, gloomy V-Day on the east coast of Scotland, where he grew up. “When I was 13, I got chucked by my girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. It was because my dad wouldn’t give me a lift to the dance in my local town.” Young Master Cumming couldn’t ride his bike, either, because there was a thunderstorm. “So she was like at the dance with all these boys paying attention to her, and she’s all ‘Fuck you!’ and dumped me on the phone. I was heartbroken.”

Fifty-three percent of financial-district buildings are now owned by New York-based landlords, The Wall Street Journal reports. These include One Federal Street, bought by Tishman Speyer last year, and the recent purchase of the State Street Financial Center by Fortis Property Group.

A decade ago, 55 percent of Boston's financial-district buildings were owned by local landlords.

- Tom Acitelli

In the category of credible Republican candidates, that leaves John McCain, the front-runner whose prospects are contingent on making peace with the right without alienating his mainstream base, and America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, who might be unstoppable in a general election if his social liberalism ever allows him to get through the primary.

And then there’s Willard (Mitt) Romney, the governor of Massachusetts who wisely declined to seek a second term as governor this year—the better to avoid the kind of home-state electoral drubbing that just felled Messrs. Santorum and Allen. Mr. Romney is running as a doctrinaire conservative, the true believer’s safe haven from the heresy of his rivals.

He’s trying, essentially, to replicate George W. Bush’s 2000 game plan, when the Texas Governor derailed Mr. McCain with charges of counterfeit conservatism.

So far, it’s working: Mr. Romney’s numbers have grown as he’s traveled the ’08 circuit, introducing himself to the G.O.P.’s grassroots folk as a kindred spirit, a frustrated and solitary voice of conservative common sense in mindlessly hedonistic Massachusetts.

And it may continue to work—unless anyone bothers to read up on the first 57 or so years of the 59-year-old Mr. Romney’s life. Because what is common knowledge in Cambridge and Groton could sink him in Council Bluffs and Grinnell: Either Mr. Romney was faking it then, or he’s faking it now.

Consider that Mr. Romney burst onto the Massachusetts political scene during the national G.O.P. revolution of 1994, when he ran a fleetingly competitive campaign against Senator Edward M. Kennedy—who was facing the voters for the first time after testifying at his nephew’s rape trial. The Mitt Romney that voters are getting to know this year would doubtless have contrasted his rock-ribbed conservative principles with the Senator’s tired and often incoherent Great Society aphorisms.

But that’s not what happened.

Here is Mr. Romney, from his first debate with Mr. Kennedy, on the subject of abortion:

“Many years ago,” he intoned, “I had a dear, close family relative that was very close to me who passed away from an illegal abortion. It is since that time [that] 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 on that matter.”

He continued: “And you will not see me wavering on that.”

The Romney line in ’08, of course, is that he was never avowedly pro-abortion-rights, but rather that he was merely disinclined to tamper with existing state law.

During the same campaign, Mr. Romney assured gay voters that, “as we seek to establish full equality for America’s gay and lesbian citizens, I will provide more effective leadership than my opponent.” Keep in mind: His opponent was Ted Kennedy.

Now, of course, Mr. Romney is doing all he can to overturn gay marriage, which was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004. Within the state, the initial furor has long ago evaporated, and even Republicans in the State Legislature have dropped their efforts to outlaw it. But Republicans in South Carolina are still in a lather, so Mr. Romney is too.

In less ideologically charged policy areas, Mr. Romney has systematically sacrificed his reformer credentials to national political expediency.

Take the case of Douglas Foy, a former president of the Conservation Law Foundation. Mr. Romney, upon winning the governorship in 2002, deputized Mr. Foy to develop an environmentally friendly “smart growth” blueprint for the commonwealth.

It seemed a perfect illustration of why the state’s independent suburbanites had flocked to Mr. Romney: A machine Democrat would have made a patronage pick, while a right-winger would have sought out a James Inhofe clone.

Mr. Foy didn’t disappoint, promptly teaming with counterparts throughout the Northeast to create the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a miniature Kyoto Accord aimed at stemming carbon-dioxide emissions.

Then Mr. Romney made up his mind to go national—and suddenly, Mr. Foy’s work reeked of Al Gore–ism. So the governor, unlike his five fellow governors, refused to sign onto the agreement and pushed Mr. Foy out.

But that’s Willard Romney: He could have been an exceptional, ideologically independent governor, just as he could have been the real-deal conservative he now appears to be. It’s just a pity that he didn’t pick one face and stick with it.