The 2012 winds are gusting this week as Mitt Romney makes his first trip back to Iowa since early 2008, when he finished second to Mike Huckabee. Romney's holding a book signing in downtown Des Moines today and later will give a speech at Iowa State in Ames, but no specifically political events.

As the Des Moines Register reports: "It's a far different tack from the one Romney took in the lead-up to the 2008 campaign. By the end of the previous midterm campaign year, in 2006, Romney had been to Iowa a dozen times. He had begun building an extensive statewide campaign apparatus and had given generously to Statehouse candidates."

The Register article also notes that Romney's signature legislative achievement in Massachusetts -- comprehensive health care reform -- is something that's unpopular among Republicans in the state.

And as Politico notes, "Just as health care, or 'Obamacare,' as it is derided on the right, hangs over this year's midterm elections, it is also already casting a shadow upon the 2012 presidential contest – and its GOP front-runner. What was once thought to be an asset for Romney...now poses a potentially serious threat to his White House hopes."

Meanwhile, in another important state in the 2012 GOP primary season, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is also expected to run for president, derided the Massachusetts model for reform in an interview with the Nashua Telegraph.

“Looking at the Massachusetts experience, it would not be one I would want for the country to follow any further," Pawlenty said.

Romney will be in New Hampshire next week, just as the Southern Republican Leadership Conference -- the biggest gathering of Republicans before the 2012 Convention -- kicks off in New Orleans.

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