Add Mitt Romney to the list of politicians turned autobiographers.
Romney, now governor of Massachusetts, may be joining former first lady Hillary Clinton on the best-seller list with his story of transforming the 2002 Winter Games into one of the most successful Olympics ever.
Tentatively titled, "Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games," the book is being ghost-written by Romney's nephew, Tim Robinson of Alpine. Romney contributed 300 pages of notes transcribed from thoughts he recorded about his time in Salt Lake City.
Romney doesn't have a book deal yet, but Robinson said a top agent at William Morris is representing the governor and anticipates striking a deal with a major publishing house within a few weeks.
The intent is to get the book in print by next spring, in time to tie into the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, Greece, as well as the congressional hearings into the disarray at the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Plus, Robinson said, the bribery trial of former Salt Lake bid leaders Tom Welch and Dave Johnson should be over by then. The pair are set to go to trial in October in connection with the more than $1 million spent to woo the votes of the International Olympic Committee.
Robinson said the book will focus on the business skills Romney brought to the Salt Lake Games. Romney came to Utah in February 1999 to take over the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, then struggling to survive the bid scandal.
The story, Robinson said, "is how he was able to take an organization that was basically a laughingstock internationally and pull off Games that were successful" using the same management principles that made him a wealthy businessman in Boston.
Such key principles as the need to "cherish your detractors" and "lower expectations" will be detailed for readers in an attempt to broaden the audience for the book.
"I convinced him to spin it as a kind of lay management book," Robinson said.
Romney, he said, is an instinctive leader.
"He flies by the seat of his pants," Robinson said. "He doesn't think about the principles or their application. He just does what he thinks is right."
He won't be the first Olympic leader to have written about the experience of running a Games. Peter Ueberroth, head of the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, wrote a best seller a year later and was discussed then as a potential presidential candidate.
Politicians, of course, often write books in advance of a campaign. The publicity generated by a book can't help but boost Romney's political profile. A Republican, he has long dreamed of a run for the White House.
That could come as soon as 2008 — the very same year some speculate Hillary Clinton, now a Democratic senator from New York, might seek her party's nomination for president.
Not so fast, said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom.
"He is not writing the book to raise his national profile," Fehrnstrom said. "There's an important story to tell and there are many lessons learned that Governor Romney wants to share."
So the book isn't gearing Romney up for a presidential run?
"No," Fehrnstrom laughed. "We're worried about re-election in 2006."
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