Romney's Taxes
So, now a lot of people are talking about Romney's taxes; specifically, that he won't release them to the public. Even Republicans are starting to line up to tell him to do so.
Whatever's in them probably looks pretty bad. Any random zillionaire is likely to have a lot of weird stuff in his tax return - the richest folk in our country hire people specifically because they find loopholes. That's not a bad morals issue - that's just the way our system is designed. What *is* a bad morals issue is designing the system that way and endorsing it. Regardless of what particular bad stuff Romney is trying to hide, he's also trying to keep public scrutiny away from the nature of wealth itself. He doesn't want to give away the game.
However, he's suffering from another problem. Any campaign has a narrative - a story about who the candidate is. This narrative isn't necessarily fair or accurate, though it sometimes is. Bush's narrative was that he was stupid and charming. Gore's was that he was eggheaded and boring. Bill Clinton's was that he was charming and untrustworthy, and Hillary Clinton's was that she was smart but unpleasant.
Romney's narrative has already taken root pretty strongly. It's that he is rich and out-of-touch, and that he is a liar. The narrative has the added benefit of being pretty spot on - i've never seen a candidate who so effortlessly lies about basically everything. He's made ads that rely on straightforward falsehoods, and refused to retract them. He has almost no public plan for a Romney presidency. People said they didn't know what Obama stood for when he was elected, but he had some pretty complete public positions.
This tax story reinforces the narrative, tremendously. It makes clear both that Romney has something he's not telling us, and that it's related to his great wealth. This couldn't hit him in a worse place.
Whatever's in them probably looks pretty bad. Any random zillionaire is likely to have a lot of weird stuff in his tax return - the richest folk in our country hire people specifically because they find loopholes. That's not a bad morals issue - that's just the way our system is designed. What *is* a bad morals issue is designing the system that way and endorsing it. Regardless of what particular bad stuff Romney is trying to hide, he's also trying to keep public scrutiny away from the nature of wealth itself. He doesn't want to give away the game.
However, he's suffering from another problem. Any campaign has a narrative - a story about who the candidate is. This narrative isn't necessarily fair or accurate, though it sometimes is. Bush's narrative was that he was stupid and charming. Gore's was that he was eggheaded and boring. Bill Clinton's was that he was charming and untrustworthy, and Hillary Clinton's was that she was smart but unpleasant.
Romney's narrative has already taken root pretty strongly. It's that he is rich and out-of-touch, and that he is a liar. The narrative has the added benefit of being pretty spot on - i've never seen a candidate who so effortlessly lies about basically everything. He's made ads that rely on straightforward falsehoods, and refused to retract them. He has almost no public plan for a Romney presidency. People said they didn't know what Obama stood for when he was elected, but he had some pretty complete public positions.
This tax story reinforces the narrative, tremendously. It makes clear both that Romney has something he's not telling us, and that it's related to his great wealth. This couldn't hit him in a worse place.