Romney's stock rises in 2008 Republican race

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - With his Hollywood good looks, huge personal fortune and gold-plated resume, Republican Mitt Romney fits the role of a leading presidential contender.

And for the first time, the former governor of Massachusetts is showing some concrete progress in the 2008 race for the White House.

A surprising $21 million first-quarter fundraising haul led all Republican candidates and bankrolled an early advertising blitz, and Romney has surged to a lead in polls in the crucial early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Romney, who would be the first Mormon to win the White House, still faces doubts about his religion and questions about the sincerity of recent policy switches to oppose abortion rights and gay rights.

In national polls, he trails well behind his top rivals, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain. And he faces a fresh challenge from the race's newest entrant, conservative former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who runs slightly ahead of him in some polls.

"Welcome Fred, come on in, the water is fine," Romney said of his new rival in an interview during a two-day campaign swing in Iowa, which kicks off the nominating contests.

Romney said he was not worried Thompson would steal his support among the religious and social conservatives he was targeting and who play an influential role in the Republican race.

"We're all going for the same constituency -- we're all going for Republicans," he said.

The multimillionaire former venture capitalist said his analytical, results-oriented approach drawn from his experience in business is what Washington needs to solve thorny problems like the Iraq war.

While he supported President George W. Bush's decision to go to war and backs his current strategy to increase troops there, he said the United States was "underprepared, underplanned and understaffed" after the fall of Baghdad.

The results of the troop increase in Iraq will be evident by the end of the year -- well before the November 2008 election -- and failure will require an unspecified "different course of action," he said.

"It's a matter of months, not years, before we get a good read on the level of success," Romney said. "I do not believe we should publish a date for withdrawal in Iraq, but I do believe we should have benchmarks and milestones by which we can assess progress."

'ON THE MOVE'

In a recent debate, Romney supported doubling the size of the detention camp that holds about 380 foreign terrorist suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba even though it has been a lightning rod for international criticism.

A Saudi prisoner on Wednesday became the camp's fourth apparent suicide since opening in January 2002.