BOSTON -- As an abortion rights advocate, Deborah Allen did not think she would find much in common with Mitt Romney. Then, she heard his pitch.

If elected Massachusetts governor, Romney said, he would "preserve and protect" legal abortion. The judges he chose probably would do the same. And then he said something so unexpected that Allen began to see Romney, a Republican whom she had considered an uncertain ally, as sincere in his search for common ground.

"You need someone like me in Washington," he said, according to Allen and two other abortion rights activists, who were deciding whether to endorse Romney in the 2002 race for governor. Although running for state office, Romney hinted at national ambitions and said he would soften the GOP's position on abortion. The party's hard-line stance, he said, was "killing them."

Today, five years later, Romney is running for president and promising to pull the Republican Party in the opposite direction, returning it to the conservative principles of Ronald Reagan. He has renounced his support for abortion rights and shifted his language on gay rights, campaign finance and other issues, bringing him more in step with Republican voters. He mocks Massachusetts, the state he led until January, as "sort of San Francisco East, Nancy Pelosi-style."

But while Romney's policy shifts have become widely known, his meetings with activists for abortion rights and other causes, which have received far less attention, show that he put a surprising amount of work into winning support from the liberal establishment in Massachusetts only a few years ago.

Making personal appeals to the state's liberal touchstones -- its gay rights, abortion rights and environmental activists -- Romney developed his own style of persuasion, convincing audiences that his passion matched their own and that he was committed to their cause. He impressed environmentalists by using rhetoric even sharper than theirs. He met gay rights activists on their turf, in a restaurant attached to a popular gay bar. He told skeptics that he would be a "good voice" and a moderating force within his party.

And in many cases, he said his commitment had been cemented by watching the suffering of someone dear to him: a grandchild with asthma, who left him worried about air pollution; his wife's multiple sclerosis, which had him placing hope in embryonic stem cell research; a distant relative who died in an illegal abortion, showing him that the procedure must remain legal. In discussing the need to combat global warming, he said he worried about his family's favorite vacation spot.

"He talked a lot about his kids and his family and the place they go to in New Hampshire on vacation," said Cindy Luppi, an official from the group Clean Water Action, who was impressed by Romney's concern about global warming in a 2003 meeting -- and later disappointed when he unexpectedly pulled the state out of a regional compact on greenhouse gases.

"We really see these as promises that were made and broken, and an ethical breach for a person of faith who had worked really hard to create this public image as an upright kind of a family guy."

The Romney campaign said Romney never broke a promise that he made to activists, and that any discrepancies stemmed from faulty memories or the political agendas of interest groups.

"People's memories change with time, and change depending on which way the political winds are blowing," said Eric Fehrnstrom, an adviser to Romney when he was governor and now that he's a presidential candidate.

Kevin Madden, a campaign spokesman, said Romney ran for governor "as someone interested in fixing a broken state with what then was a languishing economy . . . making the case that he was someone with the energy and the resume and the experience to get things done."

When Romney tried to unseat Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., in 1994, he was accused of wavering on abortion rights. "I am pro-choice. My opponent is multiple-choice," Kennedy said in one stinging exchange that echoed through the campaign.

Running for governor eight years later, Romney insisted to Allen and other officers of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts that he would be steadfast in supporting abortion rights.

"There's a benefit to simplicity. I'm a strong believer in stating your position and not wavering," he said at a 2002 endorsement meeting with the group, according to notes taken by Nicole Roos that were private until being shared with the Los Angeles Times. Roos was a NARAL officer.

According to her notes, Romney insisted that only a "crisis" would cause him to change his mind on abortion. When the activists asked for an example of a crisis, he drew a puzzling parallel, noting that a Soviet attack on the United States might prompt an anti-tax president to raise taxes.

Romney also argued that his judicial choices would be more likely to protect abortion rights than would those of a Democratic governor, according to notes of the meeting. After all, he reasoned, Massachusetts Republicans tend to favor abortion rights.

Romney also promised to fight efforts by some conservatives to require abstinence-only sex education in schools, rather than courses that mention condoms and other forms of contraception. And he presented himself as a future ally.

"He said, 'I will be a voice of reason' " within the GOP, recalled Allen, "He said, 'That makes me useful to you, because people will note that a more moderate position succeeded.' " (The group ultimately endorsed Romney's Democratic opponent.)

Romney reversed his stance on abortion in 2005 and now calls himself "pro-life." He attributed his change of heart to insights about early human life that he gained during the debate over embryonic stem cell research.

Fehrnstrom, who was in the NARAL meeting, said Romney's promise during the session was to avoid pushing for changes to the state's abortion laws if elected governor -- a commitment that he kept. He said Romney was clear about his opinions in the meeting, saying, for example that he should not be called "pro-choice."

Fehrnstrom said he did not remember any discussion of judges or Romney saying he would moderate the GOP position on abortion, despite those topics appearing in the women's notes.

When Romney huddled with dozens of gay activists for an endorsement meeting in 2002, at a restaurant attached to a popular gay bar, some of his appeals were similar to those he had made on abortion.

As with the abortion rights activists, Romney promised the Log Cabin Republicans that he would take up the fight against social conservatives on such issues as domestic partnerships for gays.

And, as with the NARAL meeting, some activists left the room thinking that Romney was closer to their position on key issues than he now says he was. Even though Romney was quoted in the media that year opposing marriage and civil unions for gays, some activists at the Log Cabin meeting gained a different impression. After talking to Romney, they thought he was sympathetic to their views on marriage and civil unions, although clearly trying to navigate through the issue's touchy semantics.

"He said, 'Call it whatever you want. Just don't use the M-word,' " recalled Richard Babson, a businessman and Republican who attended the gathering.

Now, in seeking the Republican nomination for president, Romney strikes a far different posture on issues important to gays.

When addressing social conservatives, Romney makes fighting gay marriage and the 2003 Massachusetts court ruling that legalized it the cornerstone of his appeals. And on the campaign trail, he has portrayed gay parenthood as a danger to children, saying that "every child deserves a mother and a father."

Madden, the Romney campaign spokesman, said Romney consistently has opposed gay marriage and civil unions, and that the campaign did not want to comment on why anyone in the meeting would have thought otherwise.

Romney, he added, has always "opposed discrimination based on sexual orientation."

Even after he won the 2002 election, Romney continued his courtship of the state's liberal interest groups. For example, he directed his staff to draft an aggressive plan to combat climate change, pleasing environmentalists. Weeks after taking office, the new governor led an army of staffers and activists to Salem, north of Boston, for a news conference outside a coal-fired power plant. He was there to demand that the plant draft a clean-up plan within a year. In the heat of the moment, the new governor said something that struck the environmental activists as remarkable. "I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people," Romney charged. "And that plant -- that plant kills people."

"I thought, 'Whoa, I wouldn't even say that,' " recalled Lori Ehrlich, a local activist who wanted the plant cleanup.

Then, in December, 2005, Romney surprised even his own staff by pulling the plug on a key element of his environmental agenda. Romney pulled Massachusetts out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative agreement with other northeastern states. Although Romney's team had taken a lead role in crafting it, the plan could prove too costly to power plant owners and consumers, the governor said.

In its place, Romney revised state regulations on gas emissions, but added protections against rising costs.

Campaign aides say the state law fulfilled Romney's commitment to fight global warming. "There will always be differences in how people on the far left of the environmental lobby view how the governor approaches these issues," Madden said.

But some activists say they were misled.

Romney's pull-out from the regional deal was welcomed by business leaders, and it came at a politically sensitive time. The day of his decision, Romney announced that he was not running for re-election as governor, a suggestion that he would soon focus on the White House.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.