Considering that Mitt Romney has been running for president for the past five years and was governor of Massachusetts for four years in the last decade, it is amazing that many Americans don’t feel that they know the guy. How can a man who has lived in the limelight for so long in this era of 24-7 communication still be a mystery?

One of the reasons is that he is basically shy. He doesn’t talk about himself willingly. He won’t outline his plans to improve the nation’s economy. He won’t make his tax returns public for the years he spent at Bain Capital. Unlike his running mate, he has no plans he will reveal to keep Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid solvent. He promises to repeal Obamacare, but won’t talk about alternative ways to provide health care to the uncovered or cut health care costs.

Another reason — perhaps even more significant — is that he has been firmly on both sides of the most controversial issues that face the nation, so neither conservatives nor liberals can count him as a comrade.

As governor of Massachusetts — an office he held from 2003 to 2007 — he supported abortion, gun control, tackling climate change with a cap and trade law and a requirement that everyone should buy health insurance backed up with generous subsidies for those who could not afford it.

Today in Tampa as he prepares to accept the Republican nomination for president he opposes all of these things as fervently as he supported them in Boston five short years ago.

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney created the John and Abigail Adams scholarships that offer the top 25 percent of the state’s high school graduates four-year college scholarships, a fact that his wife, Ann, chose to emphasize Tuesday night in her heart-felt endorsement of her husband.

Massachusetts schools became the best in the nation under his leadership, she said proudly. She didn’t add that Massachusetts also spent a great deal more per pupil on education then, and spends now, than do most of the other 50 states.

Romney’s decision to make the state a prime contributor to the personal successes of its younger generation while he was governor stands in stark contrast to today’s Republican convention theme, “We Built it,” which contends that Americans make their own successes without any outside help — a patently ridiculous claim. 

SO, WHO IS MITT Romney? The most accurate answer is that he is a determined man of solid abilities who wants very, very much to be president of the United States. 

He is so driven by that goal that he can change his political principles from moderate to conservative without a blink of an eye because being conservative seems to be the key to success in this particular election, which is all that matters.

To put the best possible face on that fact, his political flexibility shows him to be a pragmatist without a trace of ideology in his being. He will let running mate Ryan throw raw meat to the Tea Party folks for the rest of the campaign.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney will continue to paint President Obama as a failure because unemployment remains too high and promise to make things better without saying exactly how.

Elect me, he will keep saying, because I’m better than the other guy. And America can take him or leave him.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.

As tropical storm Isaac heads toward land at near-hurricane force on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the nation is in better shape to deal with the disasters it may create.

With Katrina in mind, the Obama administration proposed and Congress approved a new system. Money would be appropriated for disaster relief in advance. It would then be available when it was needed. There would be no competition between disaster relief and other budget needs.

Call it the rainy day approach. Because of it, there is now $1.5 billion in the emergency kitty. Already, the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Louisiana have declared states of emergency, knowing full well Isaac is going to create untold hazard.

But the new plan wasn’t adopted without opposition. Paul Ryan voted no. It would be much better, he said, to make Congress find the money needed to help stricken areas after the fact by cutting other programs. Disasters then would become another opportunity to trim the federal budget rather than an additional burden.

Ryan, perhaps, had recalled that earlier in the year efforts to beef up disaster fund balances drew strong opposition from tea party House Republicans who demanded that appropriations be at least partly paid for by cutting programs favored by the administration.

Before federal spending to repair New Orleans and help Katrina’s victims recover was completed, that disaster cost the nation about $60 billion. Needless to say, Congress couldn’t find savings of that magnitude to pay for the next Katrina disaster.

Planning ahead — appropriating ahead — is a prudent approach.

That said, let it also be noted that Rep. Ryan will be vice president of the United States if Mitt Romney wins the election in November. He can be depended upon to be a determined advocate for his budget and his priorities.

The fact that he was chosen for the No. 2 spot is also a forecast that a President Romney will support the Ryan budget fundamentals.

In November, the nation will have a choice on how to deal with natural disasters: plan ahead or wait till it happens and play it by ear.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.