He didn't just lose to Ted Kennedy. He also ran for President 4 years ago and lost.
..and didn't run for re-election for Governor because he was going to have his arse handed to him.
And that is because Mittens governed as a "severe conservative" in a liberal state silly. Connect the dots. 
If Romney were to have lost a possible reelection in 2006, it would have been mostly because of George Bush (like Ehlrick in MD), and somewhat because of the big dig not being turn around. Indeed, most of Mitten's failures were within the DOT. It should be noted that polling was erratic on his approvals, according to SurveyUSA as I posted in the "Would Mitt Romney have lost big" or whatever that thread was called. He went from 56% disapproves in June 2006 to 48-48 in July 2006 and 48-49 in August 2006. Unfortunately for Mitten's, he ended in one of the troughs. But it should be noted that his numbers had previously always recovered and it is unfair to call him an abysmal failure or say that he was markedly unpopular based on only a three months sample from October to December of 2006, which would represent the peak effect of Democratic campaign efforts to tarnish his record.
Looking through the page of approvals from back then, there were points in which Haley Barbour, Christine Gregoire, Bob Riley and Ted Kulongooski were around -30 in their numbers. All of whom got reelected, mind you. He wasn't like a Bob Taft or a Frank Murkowski who remained dead once the numbers went down.
