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I voted for Barry Goldwater when conservative wasn’t cool...

You may remember the incident then, the protest against the conservatives and Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan.

Mitt was actually there with his governor dad.

1964 - Conservative hero Barry Goldwater was leading the race for the Republican nomination against his main opponent, the arch-establishment left-wing shill, Nelson Rockefeller. Romney viciously attacked Goldwater as "suicidal" for the Republican Party.
At the Republican National Convention in 1964, with son Mitt in attendance, George Romney joined the Rockefeller Republicans in bashing Goldwater and his allies (including Ronald Reagan), calling him an extremist for his unapologetic defence of free markets and limited government under the Constitution. Ronald Reagan strongly defended Goldwater in a rousing speech defending economic and personal liberty as the system that was intended by the Founding Fathers. Goldwater won the nomination in a landslide. Romney then refused to support Goldwater's campaign against President Johnson, and said so very explicitly. Lyndon Johnson used this in his campaign ads to great effect

Lyndon Johnson ad using George Romney's anti-conservative rhetoric which Mitt was raised on and has lived.
George Romney in LBJ 1964 Presidential Campaign Commercial

“Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.”

“I’m not a partisan politician. My hope is that, after this election, it will be the moderates of both parties who will control the Senate, not the Jesse Helmses.”