Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney on Tuesday formally launched his bid for the 2008 presidential nomination, becoming the first of the leading Republican hopefuls to make an official announcement.

Romney, 59, chose his native Michigan, a presidential election battleground, as the setting for the announcement, according to U. S. media reports.

He was born in Detroit and his father, George Romney, served as Michigan governor from 1963 to 1969.

Romney has reached the top rank of Republican contenders by aggressively building a national campaign network, hiring top political talent and raising millions of U.S. dollars a year before the first contests in the nomination race.

That has helped to put him in the top tier of Republican presidential hopefuls, along with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Senator John McCain, both have national reputations and high profile perches from which to conduct their campaigns.

Romney's single term as governor of Massachusetts and previous experience as an executive, including overseeing the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, give him a record to sell to voters. The record also gives critics a point of attack.

He won attention for overhauling health care in the state, requiring every resident in the state to have health insurance, whether through employers, Medicaid or as part of a pool for lower- income residents.

Romney also balanced the Massachusetts budget without raising income or sales taxes and is credited with improving the state's school test scores in math and science.

Governors also have a good track record in presidential races: four of the last five presidents served as state chief executives.

As the former chairman of Boston-based management consulting firm Bain & Co., Romney also may benefit from contacts he made in business.

However, like McCain, he also supports the Bush administration's decision to send more troops to Iraq, a position draws fire from war critics in both parties.

The biggest obstacles for Romney now are McCain and Giuliani.

In Iowa, where Republicans will vote in caucuses next January, Giuliani is preferred by 27 percent of likely voters and McCain gets 22 percent, according to a Jan. 29-Feb. 1 American Research Group poll.

Romney trails with 11 percent, behind former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who hasn't formed a campaign.

U.S. analysts said he will need to gain traction fast if he is to have any chance of besting the two leaders.

Source: Xinhua