What, you weren't invited? Me neither.

'Magine that.

The Republican presidential candidate has kept his local appearances below the radar. Given the Lone Star State's penchant for gun rights and Romney's iffy record in that arena, one can't fault him for preferring invitation-only luncheons to town hall appearances.

A video clip from a campaign stop in Keene, N.H., earlier this month indicates that Romney has a way to go before his newfound support of the Second Amendment rolls convincingly off his tongue. (Note to candidate: When someone wearing an NRA hat asks about your history of hunting, don't try to bluff. Like military combat veterans around wannabes who never left the states, they can smell a poser from 100 yards.)

In Texas, "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life" means you've been using the business end of a .22 to put meat in the freezer since you were old enough to tie your shoes.

In Romneyland, "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life" means two outings: one as a 15-year-old to hunt rabbits and once last year when he joined major donors to the Republican Governors Association to shoot quail on a fenced game ranch in Georgia.

In an attempt to establish his bona fides as a card-carrying member of the nation's largest gun rights organization, Romney proudly boasts of his NRA membership. He just prefers not to say that he joined in August 2006.

Umm, would that be around the time he decided to take a shot at the GOP nomination?

"I would argue not many Americans care when you join, but why you join," Romney spokesman Kevin Madden told The Boston Globe last month.

Romney joined the NRA - and popped for the $1,000 Life membership - because, Madden said, "like millions of Americans, he supports the group's advocacy of the Second Amendment and its commitment to education programs promoting the safe use of firearms by law-abiding gun owners."

Romney used a Jan. 10 appearance on "The Glenn and Helen Show" podcast to punctuate his good-ol'-boy degree.

"I have a gun of my own. I go hunting myself," Romney said. "I'm a member of the NRA and believe firmly in the right to bear arms."

Only the gun wasn't his. It belongs to one of his sons, and it's kept at the family vacation house in Utah - probably because Massachusetts gun laws are so restrictive that he can't keep it there.

Romney cleared his conscience of that little fib two days after he told it - while being chaperoned by none other than NRA Executive VP Wayne LaPierre his own self at the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show in Orlando, Fla. (The SHOT Show, sponsored by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, is Mecca for gun manufacturers and dealers. For nonmembers to get in ... well, you have to run for U.S. president.)

Romney has several honkin' big problems when it comes to winning red-state primaries that attendance at a SHOT Show won't fix. And they haven't got a thing to do with being a Mormon. It's called a track record - on abortion, gay rights and guns. (To evoke Scarlett O'Hara, I'll worry 'bout abortion and gays later.)

When he ran for Senate in 1994, part of his platform was support of two gun-control measures that sent the NRA into a four-foot hover: the Brady bill, with its five-day waiting period on handgun sales, and a ban on certain types of assault-style firearms.

When he ran for Massachusetts governor in 2002, Romney stood four-square behind the state's stringent gun laws during a debate against Democratic gubernatorial nominee Shannon O'Brien. "We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts; I support them," he said in a Boston Globe report. "I won't chip away at them; I believe they protect us and provide for our safety."

And chip away he did not. Once elected, Gov. Romney was all about layering on. He even added to them in 2004 when he signed into law a permanent ban on assault-style rifles - the first of its kind by a state and one that mirrored the federal ban that expired in September of that year.

Of course, deciding whom to support for the nation's highest elected office should include consideration of other issues. But it does say something about the sorry state of Republican candidates when Mitt Romney can claim conservative credentials with a straight face.

As we say in these parts, you can paint a pumpkin black, but that don't make it a bowling ball. ---

Jill "J.R." Labbe is deputy editorial page editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram -jrlabbestar-telegram.com