But the most dramatic re invention may be a stylistic one: Romney is seeking to come across as more easygoing and accessible than the formally dressed, perfectly coiffed, carefully rehearsed candidate of the last campaign.

“Mitt is doing a better job at low-keying it,’’ said Steve Duprey, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party who supported McCain in 2008 and was a vocal Romney critic at the time. “He would be wise to stay with it right through a presidential primary.’’

New Hampshire is the place Romney’s advisers and allies say they see Mitt at rest: a wearer of jeans and driver of a black 2003 Chevy Silverado pickup truck. Some of them are hoping that Romney’s laid-back summer lifestyle will survive Labor Day and endure onto the campaign trail, helping to erase the impression many voters have had of a wealthy candidate almost animatronically focused on winning.

“That’s the Mitt Romney that I know and really enjoy — not the guy they say is too perfect, too stiff,’’ said Ron Kaufman, a longtime Romney adviser who visited him this summer. “The public image of a lot of these folks in office are often 100 degrees out of whack with reality.’’