Romney, Self-Described "Progressive"
Posted by: Joshua Green on December 13, 2011
Mitt Romney seems to be experiencing a death-by-a-thousand cuts, many of them made possible by the copious video/documentary record of his 1994 challenge to Ted Kennedy. It’s Romney’s misfortune that outlets like C-SPAN are digitizing and making available to the public the footage from back then — because back then Romney was running to the left, not to the right. Today’s wince-inducing video clip (if you’re a Romney staffer, that is) is this NECN report from 2002 in which Romney brags, “I’m not a partisan Republican. I’m someone that is moderate, and my views are progressive”:
Ouch. The trouble with this sort of clip is that it’s impossible to defend if you’ve subsequently changed your political persona. So the only plausible response for the Romney campaign is to attack the messenger, as Romney’s spokeswoman did to Politico today:
The very last thing the Democrats want to do is run against Mitt Romney. That is why they are focused on his campaign and not on the economy. The Democrats are continuing their campaign of deception in their strategy to ‘kill Romney.’ If anyone has a question of how Mitt Romney will govern as president, take a look at his record of creating jobs, cutting spending, and protecting the sanctity of life and traditional marriage. That was his record as Governor and that will be his record as president.
The problem with this line of response is that Democrats aren’t the ones who found and released this clip of Romney. It was discovered by a 22-year-old student and political junkie named Andrew Kacynski, who was profiled in New York magazine yesterday and revealed himself to be…a Mitt Romney supporter!








