WASHINGTON -- When Mitt Romney was 14, Dwight D. Eisenhower came to his family's house for dinner.

Ike had just finished his eight years as president -- it was around 1961 -- and he came because he knew Mitt's father, George, then the chairman of the American Motors Corp.

The teenager listened to the older men swap tales of World War II; he recalled how they talked about ''the invasion,'' as well as American politics. Years later, Romney reflected on that dinner as he tried to explain during an interview why he thinks he's ready to sit in the Oval Office.

''I saw that [presidents] were not Supermen who could leap tall buildings in a single bound,'' he said. ``They were ordinary people with, in some cases, extraordinary talent.''

His talent, he said, is an ability to bring people together to solve problems. ''Ronald Reagan didn't have all the answers to all the problems,'' said Romney, ``but he knew how to motivate people and change a nation.''

Romney's friends agree and say he's unrattled by pressure.

He created a thriving venture capital firm in the 1980s. It invested in well-known companies and became wildly successful. He later was credited with saving the scandal-plagued 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

But being a good manager doesn't automatically mean that there's a political leader behind the glittering résumé.

Massachusetts AFL-CIO legislative director Tim Sullivan brands Romney a ''vulture capitalist.'' Others who have dealt with him are eager to join the critics' chorus. In some ways, they say, the title of Romney's 2004 autobiography says it all, good and bad. The title: Turnaround.

A FAMILY ON THE MOVE

In his book, Romney describes how his family eventually trekked to Utah and began a tradition of ``loyalty [to the church] -- based on sanity and not on fanaticism.''

But last month he spoke in Texas and addressed in part the concerns of evangelical Christian Republicans' reservations about Mormonism. ''I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law,'' he said.

The Romney family later settled in Michigan, where Mitt's father, George, became a corporate star of the post-World War II era. By the 1960s, he would become the state's governor and, briefly, a 1968 presidential candidate.

Like his father, Romney got the political itch.

In 1994, he challenged Sen. Edward Kennedy for a U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts. The race was never close.

But Romney did better than expected, winning 41 percent of the vote, the best showing against Kennedy since 1962. Romney began to attract interest from important Massachusetts constituencies.

Gay-rights activists were pleased when he wrote the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay GOP loyalists, in October 1994 that the military's new ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy was ``the first in a number of steps that will ultimately lead to gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and honestly in our nation's military.''

He told voters that ``abortion should be safe and legal in this country. . . . I sustain and support that law (Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court abortion-rights case) and the right of a woman to make that choice.''

When the call came in 1998 from Kem Gardner, a close friend active in Utah affairs, to help rescue the Salt Lake City Olympics, Romney realized what an opportunity it could be.

Romney confronted what seemed like an impossible predicament. Organizers had been rocked by reports of cash payments to international and Salt Lake City Olympic officials.

Romney went to work, persuading corporations to continue supporting the Games and dramatically cutting the budget, while earning a reputation as a charming turnaround artist.

ACTIONS NOT AS ADVERTISED

Republicans in Massachusetts noticed, and in 2002 he ran for governor, portraying himself as a problem-solver above partisanship.

''We specifically asked if he'd support efforts to increase access to emergency contraception,'' recalled Nicole Roos, the chair of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts' political committee. ``The answer was yes.''

However, in 2005, he vetoed legislation expanding access to emergency contraception, saying that such practices sometimes cause abortions.

He also convinced gay-rights activists he was squarely on their side. Shortly before the election, about two dozen Log Cabin Republicans met with Romney in Boston, and he gave every indication he favored civil unions.

By early 2006, though, these groups were seeing a very different Romney. As he prepared to run for president, he came to Washington and had lunch with the national media. He was, as he put it, now ``firmly pro-life.''

''I'm in a different place than I was 12 years ago,'' he said. ``Twelve years ago, I refused to take any label.''

Romney argues there's nothing wrong with changing positions over time; everyone does it, he says.

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