The biggest political attack of the day might be self-inflected, as a 2002 video of a much more "progressive" Mitt Romney on the gubernatorial campaign trial as surfaced. Andrew Kaczynski, master of mulling though old C-SPAN footage, has found this video of then-gubernatorial candidate Romney at a Worcester, Mass. event, oozing confidence that he'd win the true-blue state's election despite being a Republican. He told TV reporters:

I think the old standby for who votes for which party have been blown away in this campaign. I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican, that I'm someone who is moderate, and my views are progressive ... And so they're going to vote for me regardless of the party label.

Progressive! Mitt, you can't use that word! 2002, if you remember kids, was a magical time when words like "progressive" and "liberal" were only starting to become dirty. We're sure that today's Mitt Romney wouldn't stand for what 2002 Mitt Romney said, only to score cheap political points. 2002 Romney was right about one thing though: "the old standby for who votes for which party" did change in that year, seeing as Romney became governor of Massachusetts despite its liberal proclivities.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at dgrandoni at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.