If past behavior is the best indicator of future performance, then surely the good people of Massachusetts are solidly behind their former governor, Mitt Romney.

He must have racked up quite a record in his single term if Romney believes he’s presidential material.

Bain Capital was a dictatorship under Romney and not a democratic republic like America, with many voices and diverging interests. Likewise, as CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Romney’s was the only vote that counted.

That leaves his gubernatorial stint as Romney’s only real public sector experience, during which he had to accommodate views other than his own. So how did he fare as chief executive of the Commonwealth?

When I check references, I speak to the candidate’s past employers and ask them, would you hire this person again?

If I get an enthusiastic response, I know the candidate deserves serious consideration. If I hear hesitation or equivocating, then I continue the search.

So, Bay State voters, would you hire Mitt Romney again?

I lived in New England for many years. Massachusetts voters aren’t who you think they are. Once you get outside the Boston city limits, Massachusetts is not unlike Georgia, populated by hard working, no nonsense folks.

Because Mitt Romney has promised to do a better job managing the economy than President Obama, one would assume the voters in Massachusetts support him because he told them precisely the same thing in 2002.

You know what happens when you assume, right?

Depending on the poll you look at, Romney is anywhere from 14 to 30 percentage points behind President Obama in Massachusetts, such is the impression he made on his former employers.

Those numbers emphatically tell us they wouldn’t hire Romney again. And remember, these are the same voters who elected a tea party Republican to serve out Ted Kennedy’s term.

Where did Romney go wrong?

Campaigning for governor in Massachusetts, Romney told a television interviewer his views were “progressive” and that he wasn’t a “partisan Republican.”

By 2007, when he made his first run for president, he flip-flopped, saying he was against most all of the moderate positions he took in 2002, from pro-choice to gun control.

Five years later, with his party in the grip of far right ideologues, he fallaciously told GOP primary voters last spring he’d been a “severely conservative” governor.

But Romney’s serial dishonesty isn’t what Bay State voters reject.

Plain and simple, Romney sold them a bill of goods while he used their state as a rung on the ladder to the presidency.

As in 2002, when he promised Massachusetts voters a jobs growth program, “second to none in the history of the state,” Romney is making the same vow to American voters in 2012.

“From day one as president, Mitt Romney’s strong leadership will make all the difference on jobs,” proclaims one of his ads.

But what does his Massachusetts record say?

Not much. Job growth in Massachusetts was 47th in the nation under Romney, increasing at an anemic one percent during his term.

Meantime, he imposed a 14 percent surcharge on businesses and he increased average property taxes by $700 per year. Romney also hiked fees on most all state services before leaving Massachusetts tax payers with a $1 billion deficit.

“People had very high hopes for him as governor,” said David A. Tibbetts, a former Massachusetts economic development director under previous Republican governors. “In the end, he showed no loyalty to the state he was elected to run.”

Hire Mitt Romney? Massachusetts voters know better.

Kevin Foley is a public relations executive, author and writer who lives in Kennesaw.