E-Mail This Article to a Friend Taming the beast Mitt Romney, Tom Reilly, and the political perils of the Big Dig BY ADAM REILLY

IT GOES WITHOUT saying that the Big Dig was and is a daunting engineering venture. But politically speaking, too, it poses an almost Herculean challenge. The politician who masters the project — by dispelling safety concerns or recouping taxpayer money or just holding someone accountable for the roadway’s enduring dysfunction — will be hailed as a hero. But if an elected official plays the part of the public’s Big Dig champion, only to produce mediocre results, it could kill his or her career.

Right now, this conundrum has two men in its grip: Republican governor Mitt Romney and Democratic attorney general Tom Reilly, who hopes to oust him in 2006. The $14.6 billion boondoggle that is today’s Big Dig was years in the making, and countless individuals bear some responsibility for its bloated price tag, poor oversight, and ominous structural shortcomings. Today, though, the governor of Massachusetts is best positioned to bring the project to a decent end. If Romney seeks re-election next year, voters will want proof that he’s cleaned up the mess. (So will Republican-primary voters if he runs for president in ’08.) For Reilly, meanwhile, an effective approach that limits taxpayer liability could push him past Romney in the general election — and help him fend off Deval Patrick in the Democratic primary.

The challenge for both politicians is nearly identical. But so far, the governor and the AG are responding in radically different ways. Romney’s priority seems to be to minimize his own risk: over the past several months, he’s called repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) for the ouster of Massachusetts Turnpike Authority chairman Matt Amorello, but has done little else of note. Reilly has been more intrepid, agreeing in January of this year to spearhead the Commonwealth’s cost-recovery efforts for the project. If the AG reaches a hefty settlement with Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff — with the election just a few months away — this gamble will look like pure genius. But that may not happen. As for Romney, the success of his strategy may hinge on whether the state’s Supreme Judicial Court rules that he has the right to fire Amorello. (Last month, the Romney administration submitted a legal brief making this argument; the court is currently weighing the issue.) In the long run, of course, Reilly and Romney’s respective approaches will have concrete practical consequences for the citizens of Massachusetts. But long before those consequences are clear, their contrasting methods — and the way they resonate with voters — could decide the outcome of the governor’s election.

LAST FRIDAY afternoon, in a packed chamber in South Boston’s John Joseph Moakley Federal Courthouse, an abbreviated version of the US House’s government-reform committee — committee chair Tom Davis (R-Virginia) and Boston Democrat Stephen Lynch, plus special guest Mike Capuano, the Democratic congressman from Somerville — held a hearing to ponder the past and future of the Big Dig. Many of the individuals who’ve dominated recent discussion of the Big Dig made an appearance; Reilly was there, as was Amorello and Ken Mead, the US Highway Department’s inspector general. Romney, however, was absent.

The governor’s press office did not respond to a request for comment. But according to Drew Crockett, a spokesman for the government-reform committee, Romney was not invited because his testimony would have overlapped with that of other participants. It’s a strange explanation, since only Romney seems to regard Amorello’s ouster as the best way to cure the Big Dig’s woes. And, given Romney’s penchant for reform, you’d think he would have jumped at a chance to explore the organizational flaws that led the Big Dig to spiral out of control. But Crockett’s account is supported by Lynch, who tells the Phoenix that Romney was willing to participate.

Even so, it’s unlikely the governor seriously considered making the trek to the Moakley Courthouse. If Romney had participated in the hearing, Lynch and Capuano would have been free to make him squirm. Furthermore, ever since his election, Romney’s approach to the Big Dig has resembled his broader approach to Beacon Hill: he rails against it as an outsider, but keeps enough distance to leave his own hands unsullied. Putting Romney at the witness table — and allowing the image of the governor, looking like a defendant at a criminal trial, to be captured on film — could have created the dangerous impression that Romney is somehow complicit in the Big Dig’s failures. Since this could have tarnished his carefully cultivated outsider-savior persona, the governor was smart to stay away.

Of course, the problem with not showing up is that you can’t defend yourself. And at one point in the hearing, Capuano — who was operating in full crotchety-uncle mode — took a direct shot at the governor. Half an hour into the first Q&A session, the congressman accused the Romney camp of prematurely impugning Reilly’s cost-recovery efforts, then warned that more cheap shots will come as the gubernatorial campaign intensifies. "Everybody in this room knows that the attorney general is more than likely to run for governor, and I wish him well," Capuano said. "My concern is that whatever the attorney general’s office comes up with, it’s going to be in the middle of a gubernatorial campaign. Even if the attorney general does everything perfectly, and comes up with the perfect answer, it’s going to be subject to political second-guessing."

Ostensibly, Capuano was explaining his continued support for a bipartisan commission that would oversee cost recovery, a step Romney initially favored as well. (Supporters of an independent commission claimed that method would have depoliticized the issue; Reilly and the state legislature countered that such a body would be ineffectual because it would lack the power to litigate.) But in the context of the congressional hearing — with the cameras rolling and dozens of reporters eagerly taking notes — Capuano’s comments amounted to free political advertising. Everyone in the room got an early preview of one potential Democratic sales pitch for 2006: it’s Reilly, the straight shooter who just wants to do his job, versus Romney, the cynical politician who prizes personal gain over the public good.