Diplomat / Banker Kent Lucken's new cause: Promote The Glorious Leadership of Der Mittenfuhrer

[Ian David]

By Alison O'Leary Murray, Globe Correspondent | March 4, 2007

He's been a neutral observer for elections in two former Soviet states, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. Now Newton's Kent Lucken is trying his hand at partisan politics.

Lucken, 42, will trade his elegant 30th-floor office in the Prudential complex for the farm fields of Iowa to stump for former governor Mitt Romney.

As one of the six members of Romney's Iowa Steering Committee, he is charged with helping the Republican get through an important early test of the 2008 presidential nomination process, the party's Aug. 11 straw poll.

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Lucken, a Citigroup Private Bank managing director, plans to move back to Iowa for part of the summer.

"The whole family is going to get involved," said Lucken, who has sons ages 12 and 15. "The kids will lick stamps and hold signs," just as he did at age 16 in 1980 when his father supported George H. Bush, the incumbent president's father, over Ronald Reagan for the GOP nomination.

He says Romney is perceived in Iowa much differently than he is in Boston, where critics slam him for a rightward shift on gay marriage and abortion rights while preparing for the national stage.

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