At a rally yesterday in Golden, Colorado, there was something noticeably different about Mitt Romney. It wasn’t the checked periwinkle button-down. It wasn’t the unusually high level of energy and snarky humor he showed on the stump—a product of his deep relief, no doubt, at having his ill-advised overseas gaffe-making trip blessedly over and done with. No, the surprising thing was the content of his pitch, which—for virtually the first time in his long campaign for the presidency—acknowledged, frankly and openly, that the Republican’s presumptive nominee actually did, at one time, hold elective office. As Slate’s William Saletan commented, “Mitt Romney has discovered something shocking about himself: He used to be a governor.”

Romney has spent the campaign pitching himself as a businessmen and the very opposite of a “career politician”—which, for someone who’s been running for president for the better part of a decade now, has never been especially convincing. He didn’t want to talk about Massachusetts any more than he wanted to talk about dressage. “I’ve spent my life in the private sector,” he never tires of proclaiming. But in Golden, he unveiled a new campaign theme—five things he’ll do to revive the middle class—and a slick new “scorecard” handed out to all in attendance and posted on his website. And there it is, for all the world to see: “Romney’s Record in Massachusetts.” (Somehow, health care reform, his one notable achievement in that office, is nowhere to be found.)

Romney is offering nothing new in terms of policy. As the Prospect’s Jamelle Bouie points out, “Mitt Romney’s Plan for a Stronger Middle Class” is little more than a “cruel joke”—a recitation of the wealth-first tax and spending plans that Paul Ryan translated into English from the works of Ayn Rand. But the new thrust of the Romney campaign is a notable development: It shows that the Obama campaign has succeeded in making Romney’s business career, which he wanted to run on exclusively, into a liability. Starting to tout his record as governor, rather than pretend it’s a period of his life that never actually happened, is the surest signal that the Romney campaign is groping for a new way to pitch their man—and that they’ve lost the battle over his attempt to paint himself as a business guy who just stumbled into politics.

SO THEY SAY 

"I'm very looking forward to a Republican being back in office. When you're rich, you want a Republican in office."

—Porn star Jenna Jameson, endorsing Romney for president.

 DAILY MEME: MITT ANALYZES THE monthly JOBS reports

• Today: "It's another hammer blow to the struggling middle-class families of America because the president has not kept policies that would put Americans back to work."
• July: “This is a time for Americans to choose whether they want more of the same. It doesn’t have to be this way. America can do better. And this kick in the gut has to end.” 
• June: “Today’s weak jobs report is devastating news for American workers and American families. This week has seen a cascade of one bad piece of economic news after another."
• April: “It is increasingly clear the Obama economy is not working and that after three years in office the president’s excuses have run out.”
• February: “We welcome the fact that jobs were created and unemployment declined. Unfortunately, these numbers cannot hide the fact that President Obama's policies have prevented a true economic recovery. We can do better."
• November 2011: "We can’t afford another year of President Obama’s failed economic policies. And we certainly can’t afford five more years. This is not exactly the hope and change that the American people bargained for.”
• August 2011: "When you see what this President has done to the economy in just three years, you know why America doesn't want to find out what he can do in eight."
• July 2011: “If David Plouffe were working for me, I would fire him and then he could experience firsthand the pain of unemployment … With their cavalier attitude about the economy, the White House has turned the audacity of hope into the audacity of indifference.”
• June 2011: "Look, he's a nice guy. He's well-spoken. He can talk a dog off a meat wagon ... But he hasn't delivered. ... What he has done has failed the American people."

• Abby Rapoport: Legal wrangling over Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law could confuse potential voters even more.
• Paul Waldman: Even if three states legalize recreational marijuana in November, don’t expect it to become a trend any time soon.

• Day’s best headline, from Dan Amira: “Mitt Romney Proves He Paid Taxes Every Year by Saying ‘I Have Paid Taxes Every Year.’”
• John Cassidy explains why Romney’s economic recovery plan could bring on another recession.
• Sarah Posner: Romney’s comments about Palestine weren’t gaffes so much as dog-whistles for the evangelical right.
• How did Tennessee Democrats manage to nominate a neo-John Bircher for U.S. Senate?
• If you like your politics dirty and personal, you’ll love the Florida race for U.S. Senate.
• Will gay kisses at Chick-Fil-A make it all better?
• Nate Cohn: Will Romney’s troubles with undecided voters cost him the election?
• Contrarian view of the day: Charles Krauthammer deems Romney’s foreign trip “a major substantive success."

A majority of Latinos (51 percent) now identify as political independents, according to Gallup, while 32 percent say they’re Democrats and 11 percent admit to Republicanism. The picture is different when you ask Latinos what party they lean toward: 52 percent say Democrats, 23 percent Republicans. The best news for Dems? The gap is even wider among those who are registered to vote.