Ten years ago, Shannon O'Brien became the first woman elected Governor of Massachusetts defeating her Republican opponent Willard M. "Mitt" Romney.
Many pundits thought that Romney was the best chance to keep the Massachusetts Governor's mansion in Republican hands in the wake of political and ethical missteps surrounding the administration of Governor Jane Swift. That is until Romney began campaigning.
The endless political ads in which Romney said that he liked to fire people, the photo op of a smiling Romney driving a tractor on a dairy farm in Worcester while waving to onlookers, and journalist Rachel Maddow's expose on Romney's record as the head of Bain Capital (especially the heartbreaking story of the former employees of a factory in Indiana closed down by Bain after profiting nearly $20 million) drove the final nail into Romney's coffin.
Coupled with his loss to Ted Kennedy in the 1994 US Senate race, Romney was a double loser and his political career came to an end.
The highlights of O'Brien's first term were the passage of health insurance reform that included a public option and the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts. O'Brien won reelection in 2006 with 66 percent of the vote.
In 2008, Barack Obama selected Governor O'Brien as his running mate. Obama scored a comfortable victory over John McCain that November and O'Brien became the first female Vice President of the United States.
But suppose Romney was able to get elected Governor in 2002. How successful would his first term in office be? Would he be govern like a New England moderate? And would a Governor Romney have been a serious contender for the White House?