You make excellent points that go right to the heart of what this article reminds us about Newt. HE CHANGED the state. He turned it toward conservatism.
While Mitt complains he had to be liberal in Mass, as it is a blue state.
Rick Santorum uses the same excuse about his time in office in Pennsylvania.
Mitt was actually the fourth Republican governor in a row, Massachusetts prefers Republican Governors, or at least did, until Romney.
Santorum’s loss was a history making loss for an incumbent Senator in Pennsylvania, and was the worse in more than a quarter century for the US, according to the sources I have seen, like wikipedia.