What Can Voters Expect from a President Romney?

Mitt Romney's No Apology is the work of a highly intelligent, very well-informed man with a proven record of successful executive leadership. But what kind of president would he be?

Click here for all of David Frum’s blogposts on Mitt Romney’s “No Apology”.

It's page 258 - and suddenly we are back in Campaign Mode. The transition is very abrupt. On pages 256, Romney is describing an interesting program he advocated in Massachusetts: "a Parental Preparation Program for every underperforming school district. In order for parents in these districts to enroll their children in public school, the parents would have been required to attend classes themselves, where they would learn about the value of education as well as ways in which they could support their children's educational experience."

On p. 257, a funny story about Romney's business career, about his unsuccessful attempt to woo a bright young MBA to join Bain in the late 1970s. The MBA declined, preferring to join a college friend's startup company. Punchline: "I saw Steve Ballmer twenty-five years later at the home of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. He reminded me of my long-ago effort to recruit him. I joked that if he'd taken my offer instead of joining Microsoft, he'd likely be doing pretty well by now."

And then, p. 258 - we are suddenly hearing about the dangers of "soft tyranny" extinguishing the American entrepreneurial spirit and of the imminent threat from "monarchists in spirit." And from there to the end it's a long series of salutes to one after another Republican constituency and shibboleth. "I am unapologetically pro-life," Romney says on p. 265. Then it's on to same-sex marriage and liberal judges' attack on the Constitution, and from there to catch-in-throat heroism and sacrifice. I hope I am not belittling any of the gallant people Romney mentions here when I say that these pages read very much like the road-testing of some future nomination acceptance speech.

The book concludes with a 64-point action plan. Many of them are very good points. (Not all: The president elected in 2012 will want a weak dollar, not a strong one.)

But here are the final thoughts as one puts it down:

No Apology is the work of a highly intelligent, very well-informed man with a proven record of successful executive leadership. Romney was much disliked by the other Republican candidates in 2008, but as a pro-McCain friend joked to me: "I have to admit - Mitt Romney would make the greatest Secretary of Transportation ever."

What kind of president would he be?

Peggy Noonan once wrote of the first President Bush that he saw it as his job to sit behind a big desk and wait for important decisions to be brought to him to be made wisely and well.

Romney has some of that Bush spirit, topped up with an additional measure of technocratic expertise.

Yet it's never been enough for a president to be a very smart guy who is good at running things. America has lots of smart guys who are good at running things. Why this smart guy of all the possible smart guys?

That's the question that remains unanswered at the end of No Apology - and maybe the core weakness of the Romney political campaign.