Giuliani and Mccain Face Challenge From Mormon Financier

Mitt Romney, who as a moderate Republican governor brought universal health insurance to the bedrock liberal state of Massachusetts, announced a run for the White House yesterday.

Mr Romney, 59, the chief executive of a multibillion dollar venture capital firm, would be the first Mormon president if elected over more visible rivals, the maverick senator John McCain and the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

He returned to Michigan, where he was born and where his father was governor for three terms, to make his announcement, posing in front of a DC3 aeroplane at the Henry Ford museum. He was due to travel on to Iowa, traditionally the first state to hold caucuses for the presidential primaries. Michigan was intended to symbolise American ingenuity as embodied by Mr Romney, whose management skills rescued the Salt Lake City Olympics from scandal and financial disaster in 2002.

In his announcement Mr Romney said Americans' loss of faith in government could not be fixed from within and needed an outsider with an executive mindset. "I do not believe Washington can be transformed by someone who has never tried doing such a thing before, in any setting, by someone who has never even managed a corner store, let alone the largest enterprise in the world," he said.

"Throughout my life I have pursued innovation and transformation. It has taught me the vital lessons that come only from experience, from failures and successes, from the private, public and voluntary sectors, from small and large enterprise, from leading a state, from being in the arena, not just talking about it."

Jewish Democratic activists immediately accused Mr Romney of embracing Ford's notorious anti-semitism by appearing at the museum.

After one term as governor of a small state regarded primarily as the breeding ground for Democratic presidents and candidates - from John F Kennedy to John Kerry - Mr Romney has a lower profile than other Republicans in the fray. He lags a distant third in popularity and name recognition behind Senator McCain and Mr Giuliani. But he hopes to capitalise on Mr Giuliani's weaknesses among conservative Republican primary voters - his liberal stand on gay rights and abortion - by repositioning himself as a conservative.

During his earlier campaigns in Massachusetts, Mr Romney has supported abortion rights and been supportive of gays - although he opposed same-sex marriage. But in recent weeks he has lobbied for support from evangelical leaders and conservative Congressman who can confirm his transformation and overcome doubts about his Mormon faith. He appeared yesterday with his wife, Ann, his five sons and their wives, and declared his belief in the sanctity of human life and the family as the bedrock of American values.

He has tried to distance himself from Mr Bush on Iraq, offering only guarded support yesterday for the troop increase and warning that a failure there could be "devastating" for America.