Youngstown, Ohio — Mitt Romney’s town hall here on Monday afternoon reflected his campaign. It was tightly controlled, expertly managed, and packed with boisterous supporters. But accompanying that well-oiled machine was a hint of skepticism about Romney’s conservative politics.

As he fielded questions from the senior citizens and college students who sat in folding chairs on a steel-factory floor, Romney was twice asked about health care. One elderly woman wanted to know — to really know — whether he would repeal President Obama’s federal health-care law. “I need an emphatic ‘yes’ from you that you will repeal Obamacare,” she demanded.

“Why would I not?” Romney asked.

#AD#Another middle-aged woman, a self-proclaimed Romney fan who clasped the former governor’s latest paperback as she spoke, wanted him to better explain the difference between Obamacare and Romney’s program in Massachusetts. She expressed exasperation about not knowing how to tell family and friends about the big differences. She wanted some sales tips.

“I want to know how I can answer the doubters,” she said.

Romney greeted both of these questions with an easy chuckle, but the underlying exasperation was evident in his responses. This late in the primary game — only six months until Tampa — and here he was, once again, explaining to conservatives that he was not a Trojan horse for Bay State liberalism; that he was, if you just looked at the facts, one of them.

“Our plan dealt with the 8 percent of people in my state who didn’t have insurance,” Romney told the woman who held No Apology, his book. “Obamacare dealt with 100 percent of people. It took over health care for everyone.” He promised that if he won the GOP nomination, he’d fight hard this fall to make the repeal case. “I can’t wait to have this debate,” he said.

But Romney wasn’t itching to have a lengthy health-care discussion on the eve of Super Tuesday, when ten states, including Ohio, will hold primaries. His opening remarks were focused on the economy, his tax plan, and his support for manufacturing. Repealing Obamacare, he noted during the question-and-answer period, was a position he settled on long ago.

Romney added that his Massachusetts experience should not be viewed with suspicion by fellow Republicans; he urged them to see it as a general-election asset. “I’m happy to say, ‘Mr. President, all of the people in my state are insured; I did that without raising taxes,’” he told the crowd.

But the confusion among conservatives, even his die-hard supporters, remains, at least in eastern Ohio. The exchanges highlighted Romney’s key weakness this cycle — even as he surges ahead, scooping up primary victories, the former governor seems to be besting lesser opponents on the electability question, not necessarily winning over converts to his cause.

And for the most part, Romney seems to be fine with that. He’s clearly not on an ideological mission; he’s not desperate to be a movement hero. Instead, in his words and his persona, he remains a data-driven executive who’s running a presidential campaign on automatic pilot, pursuing standard conservative remedies without trying to incite resentment..

“There are other folks in this campaign talking about a lot of other things, and that’s fine,” Romney told the audience, in a subtle shot at former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, his chief rival in the Ohio polls, who frequently speaks about social issues on the campaign trail. “But for me,” he said, “the issues are more jobs, less spending, and smaller government.”

That message, which has been delivered repeatedly on Romney’s bus tour this week, may be enough for him to win this swing state’s primary. It may not warm the heart of every conservative voter, but it clicks with the bulk of Republican voters, many of whom told me in Youngstown that economic growth — not contraception or marriage — is their number-one concern.

The latest polls show a dead heat. But Romney has closed strong, erasing Santorum’s double-digit lead from last month. Two polls released on Monday — from Quinnipiac and the American Research Group — show Romney leading Santorum. A third poll released on Monday, conducted by Suffolk University, shows Santorum leading Romney by four percentage points.

The upward trend has Romney backers optimistic about their chances.

“I think Mitt is going to do really well,” says Senator Rob Portman, a freshman Republican and Romney surrogate. In an interview on Monday, he predicted that Romney’s economic appeal will resonate in central Ohio, in the “bellwether” suburbs near the capital, Columbus, and in the recession-plagued industrial centers in the state’s eastern and southwestern regions.

As he watched the former governor mingle with Ohio voters on Monday, top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom was similarly hopeful. Four years ago, he said, Romney’s presidential bid fizzled before the Ohio primary, so this year, the campaign had to build its operation from scratch, utilizing Portman’s network, and the support of other endorsers, to stir enthusiasm.

While Romney’s town hall had the look of a perfectly stage-managed set, Fehrnstrom said that political visuals don’t tell the whole story.

Romney, he argued, even after winning the Michigan primary late last month, remains an underdog in this Rust Belt state. “He came here a week ago and he was down 11 points,” Fehrnstrom said. “He’s been successful in keeping his focus on his jobs message while his opponents have been distracted by non-economic issues. We haven’t made that mistake.”

Such discipline, even in the face of skeptical conservatives, has elevated Romney this entire season. At almost every stop, he is peppered with questions; he is pestered about his record. He is hardly embraced. But he keeps his eyes on the prize, and, most important in Ohio, on the economy.

— Robert Costa is a political reporter for National Review.