During the course of his long run for the presidency, Mitt Romney has consistently presented himself to voters as a "turnaround" artist, or as his supporters have taken to calling him recently, a "Mr. Fix-It."

In making his closing argument to voters that he should have that chance to take his government tool belt to Washington, Romney has vowed to "bring people together," to govern as president.

"I've got be able to reach across the aisle and get good Democrats and good Republicans to work together," the former Massachusetts governor told a crowd in Jacksonville, Florida, on Wednesday.

"My legislature was about 85% Democrat and it was not lost on me that to get anything done at all, and even to have my veto upheld, I had to have people across the aisle I could work with," he continued.

Romney's critics insist the Republican candidate's bipartisan overtures are in need of a serious reality check. They look no farther than his statement to last February's gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

"I fought long odds in a deep blue state. But I was a severely conservative Republican governor," Romney told the conference.

The words "severely" and "conservative" are no longer part of Romney pitch with the campaign in the home stretch. Asked how Romney's promises of bipartisanship align with what quickly became a YouTube moment at CPAC last winter, a senior campaign adviser argued the two claims are not mutually exclusive.

"As governor, he brought people together to deal with health care. He's brought people together to deal with a very big deficit that he had when he came into office," said Kevin Madden, one of Romney's top strategists.

Trying to bring together competing ideas, philosophies

"The governor has made a point that he is going to try to bring together all of the competing ideas and philosophies in Washington in order to tackle some of the big challenges. Does he recognize there is going to be opposition? Sure," Madden added.

In fact, Romney's aides have quietly begun laying the groundwork for a presidential transition, should he win the White House. Dubbed the "Readiness Project" and led by former Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt, the transition team has already had at least one meeting with senior Republican lawmakers, a top congressional source told CNN.

"They're interested in recommendations for Cabinet posts," the congressional source, who was not authorized to speak about the subject publicly, said.

The advance legwork could enable Romney to sidestep some of the problems he encountered nearly a decade ago when he entered the governor's office in Boston.

Michael Widmer, a government watchdog with the non-partisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said Romney's experience in the business world left him ill-prepared for the unwieldy mix of liberal lawmakers, advocacy groups and news media that confronted him.

"It was a rude awakening for the Romney administration," Widmer said. "Early on, the legislature and the Romney administration were at loggerheads."

But his passage of health care reform in the state demonstrated the self-styled "chief executive" governor was able to find his way and work across party lines.

"There was a spirit of bipartisanship around health reform," Widmer said.

The spirit was hard to miss. At the signing ceremony for his signature legislative achievement, Romney had none other than an old political nemesis and liberal icon, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, at his side. After overcoming a GOP primary season in which Romney's health care reform plan was mocked as "Obamneycare," aides to the former governor now dub the initiative "successful."

Different environment than governors office

If elected president, however, Romney would inherit a dramatically different political environment. Sandwiched between tea party Republicans who have little patience for compromise and a potentially vengeful contingent of defeated Democrats, a President Romney would have no shortage of challenges.