Poor Mitt Romney just can’t catch a break. He takes a whirlwind tour of England, Israel and Poland and has major PR screwups in every single one. Of course, the Polish one he can blame on a spokesperson, but it was bad enough he had to fire the poor guy. I guess that’s no biggie, he likes firing people.
Rafalca, Romney’s dancing horse. She didn’t win, but she probably did as well as Mitt will.
Then he gets back to the States and all anybody wants to talk about are his tax returns and why he doesn’t want to make them public, the way all presidential candidates back to 1968 have done. I guess he figured he’d put that behind him when he sent his wife Ann out in front of the cameras to say “We’ve given all you people need to know.” He figured wrong.
The issue might have died except that mild mannered Harry Reid said that he heard, from somebody who used to work for Bain Capital but wants to remain anonymous, that miserly old Mitt didn’t pay any federal income taxes at all for 10 years.
Mitt has responded with righteous rage, saying that’s totally untrue, he has paid taxes, lots and lots of taxes, so many taxes it would likely make your eyes pop right out of your head, but he still won’t release the returns.
I must admit, I don’t know why he won’t release the returns. Nobody knows. The mind of Mitt Romney is the dark matter of American politics. But here are some theories, ranked from least damaging to Romney to most damaging, because dessert is served last.
1. This is subtle strategy on the part of Romney. Get everybody screaming about his tax returns so they don’t question him about his economic plan, or Seamus the Irish Setter, or whether or not he would start a war with Iran. Then, along about the 3rd week of October, he releases the returns and he’s clean as a whistle. Sort of like what Barry did with his birth certificate. I consider this scenario unlikely, because I don’t think Romney is smart enough or honest enough to pull it off.
2. He didn’t actually do anything illegal, but an examination of the returns will show what an evil plutocrat he really is, with his fancy horses and cars and mansions and foreign bank accounts.
3. He really did pay nothing, or almost nothing.
4. Some of the really creative, and interesting, theories I’ve heard, which would damage him mostly among those most likely to vote for him. Like maybe he once donated to Planned Parenthood, which would turn the anti-abortion nutcases against him. Or that he’s been lying to the Mormon Church about his wealth, giving them a couple of grand a year and saying “Here’s my 10 percent.”
5. There is actually something illegal in there and he could wind up in the big house instead of the White House.
I suspect it’s somewhere between 2 and 3, but that would be enough to lose the election. As Harry Reid said “Forget about president — Mitt Romney couldn’t get confirmed as a cabinet secretary. The contents of the one year of returns he has released would probably be enough to tank his nomination anyway: secret overseas bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, tax avoidance tricks and a lower tax rate than middle-class families pay.”
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