For quite some time, we've noted the likelihood that Massachusetts' Republican Governor Mitt Romney would forgo a bid for reelection in 2006. The reasoning holds that for Romney to win next year, he would have to move to the left -- thus alienating the right wing he needs to win the GOP Presidential nomination in 2008. What's more, Romney has little to gain even by winning; his cache as a conservative governor from a liberal state works as well as a single-termer as it does as a two-termer.

In Monday's paper, The Washington Post's David A. Fahrenthold provides some reporting that seems to buttress our theory.

For months, this blue-state governor has been pitching himself to conservatives in a way that campaign experts say is highly unusual -- perhaps even historic. Instead of talking about his home state with the usual lip-quivering pride, Romney uses it like a vaudeville comic would use his mother-in-law: as a laugh line.

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The problem: Some people here in Massachusetts are not laughing. Political observers say Romney may have put himself in trouble for next year, when the "vegetarian convention" has another gubernatorial election scheduled.

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Presidential campaign historians say they understand why Romney is doing it: He has to overcome the same "liberal Massachusetts" stereotype that has stymied previous Democratic presidential candidates such as Kerry and former Massachusetts governor Michael S. Dukakis.

But the same historians are hard-pressed to come up with any previous candidates who have tried the same tack.

Yanek Mieczkowski, a presidential historian at Dowling College in New York, said that Lyndon B. Johnson had to separate himself from racist elements in Texas, and Ronald Reagan did the same with the hippie fringe in California. Looking further back, there was Grover Cleveland, who in 1884 used the slogan "Grover the Good" to separate himself from the political corruption in his home state of New York.

With this playbook, it's no wonder that Romney's approval rating and reelect numbers are fairly underwhelming, even for a blue state conservative. But if he believes that these tactics will give him the inside track on the GOP nomination, he might have to think again, says Amy Sullivan of The Washington Monthly, who posits that Romney's Mormonism is a non-starter among Evangelicals. Whether or not Sullivan is correct, however, it's clear that residents of Massachusetts are getting a bit tired of Romney.

Frank van Overbeeke, a chef at Matt Murphy's Pub in Brookline, said he had a question for the governor after hearing what he'd said about Massachusetts.

"Well," van Overbeeke said, "what are you doing here?"

Maybe it's better that Romney is spending so much time in the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina after all...