Who is this man, Mitt Romney?

And what does the future hold for him?

Our new Governor has charmed his way through his first two months in office. He comes across as a smooth, decent, ordinary family man with only the best in mind for his adopted state. A wealthy venture capitalist and trained as an MBA, he was raised in a family lineage intertwined with politics in Michigan, where his father was Governor. Mr. Romney exudes family values and determination of spirit that has charmed some of the state's population.

Charmed them like a snake-oil salesman.

In these first nine weeks in office, Mr. Romney and his new administration are faced with making some tough choices. Inert economic conditions, both locally and across the country, have resulted in huge gaps in state tax revenues. Massachusetts, as most other states, is facing deficits in the billions of dollars&emdash; revenues from taxes and state fees fall far short of state expenses this year, and are expected to worsen in the next fiscal year. The government's task: find a way to pay for the services people need while eliminating the programs and services they don't. Mr. Romney and his cohorts have pledged to preserve "essential services", yet this new Republican crowd now in office has yet to reveal what they see as "essential." There is the uneasy feeling here that what they believe is important won't be what's important to our neighborhoods.

The new Governor has launched a PR offensive that features regular appearances on talk radio programs, judging that the mavens of the airwaves will be his best allies. Romney's handlers are borrowing a page from White House aide Carl Rove's playbook- play to your audience, arrange endless photo ops with fabricated visuals, and never stay around for the tough questions.

In Romney's world, business is business and politics is, well, business too. He knows he can manipulate a leveraged buyout with the best of them in the world of high finance. Now he's out to prove that hard, bottom-line business decisions can be made about political issues as well.

There are two examples that stand out in these early days of the Romney era that reveal what this man is about: On inaugural day, acknowledging his great personal wealth, Mr. Romney revealed he would not accept his new state salary. But the man did not return those funds to the state treasury. Instead he bumped up the salaries of some newly appointed aides. One of them, PR guy Eric Fehrnstrom, is paid a reported $150,000 a year. This is the same guy that last month verbally and physically assaulted a city Mayor whom he disagreed with. Mitt is said to have told him not to do it again.

This week, our Governor was the featured speaker at a breakfast with minority community leaders. The Governor told his audience he planned to do something about curbing the gas guzzling use of SUVs in state government. After the meal, Romney was ushered out of the hall and directly to a fleet of three SUVs, tinted glass and all, and rushed away in a caravan that included at least three state troopers at his side.

It is not yet clear who this man Romney is or what he believes in. That he intends to shake-up government as we have come to know it is certain. But how many people he hurts in his crusade is yet to be revealed.

-Ed Forry