Why McCain passed on Mitt?

[keystonejenks]

Everybody suspects the reason is what has been all over the news lately - Mitts refusal to show what he paid in taxes.

Well yesterday a story broke that a Bain investor said Mitt didn't pay taxes for over 10 years!! I'm holding out for more info on this from the "liberal" media. Think it will happen?

[will]

I'm not going to hold my breath just yet, but it's just one more straw on his campaign camel. Dukakis and Kerry were worn out over time, not just by one issue, but by the steady drip of things like that. The difference this time is that Romney really is the selfish frat boy he seems to be, while Kerry was a bloated ego, but he wasn't in same venal rich kid league.

RomneyShambles:

Dog on car roof. Drip.
Frat boy "hijinks" as a privileged prep school student. Drip.
Sneaky tax behavior. Drip.
I like to fire people. Drip.
Outsourcing isn't offshoring except when it is. Drip.
When did he really retire from Bain. Drip.
How many Cadillacs does he have. Drip.
Romney care/Obamacare - what is his real position. Drip.
Immigration pandering and now a flop back. Drip.
Botched Europe trip. Drip.

Some of this stuff is trivial, but it adds up to a portrait of a guy who is an incompetent upper class twit, almost suitable for inclusion in a Monte Python skit. I find it hard to believe he actually believes some of the things he says, but since he's been part of the corporate world for a long time, he doesn't seem to have any problem saying just about anything, true or untrue. He also doesn't seem to have any shame whatsoever about saying things that are patently untrue. He's either in a bubble or has lousy fact checkers, or both.

It will continue until the "liberal" media has to notice because everyone else already did. He's got the self absorption of dumb'ya combined with the grace and charisma of Kerry. If he is the best guy the GOP can come up with, then this country needs to import some politicians from China or something.

[keystonejenks]

I'm not buying this accusation hook, line, and sinker. I just think there is something there. Maybe it's not that he didn't pay taxes but it could be his tax rate on his billions is so much lower than lower/middle class individuals.

[will]

No, the accusation isn't the real issue. It is the constant repetition of things that make Romney look like the pampered and clueless son of privilege that he is. I'm sure he played plenty of games on his taxes, otherwise they would be out in the open. He probably did some shady accounting and moved money out of taxable accounts into offshore and other sheltered accounts on a regular basis. He has an MBA and made his money doing buyouts, so he's certainly capable of a cost/benefit analysis. My guess is there's enough in his taxes that doesn't square that he has decided the risk of disclosure doesn't outweigh the benefit. I can't think of any other reason he has been delaying, unless he's afraid of 'fessing up to outright criminal behavior.

[will]

This story just keeps getting goofier. Romney could demolish Reid completely if he released tax records showing he paid a whole lot on his earnings. He won't do it. Why could that be? Obama released multiple versions of his birth certificate, and the moron factor still thinks those are not credible. On one level, this is the same, but on another level it is completely different. Romney could put this fire out right now and overcome whatever damage it did in the next few months. If he wasn't hiding some kind of smoking gun. I don't understand why he doesn't do that. If he paid 6% or some other ridiculously small tax percentage, so be it. Releasing tax records has been a standard political practice for decades now.

Romney's behavior makes no sense to me at all. The more he is on the defensive over this, the worse he looks, and the longer he refuses to 'fess up to whatever is in there, the worse he looks. Has he been in a bubble for so long he thinks this will go away? Look at birther claims. Those haven't gone away entirely, so you know Mitten's tax hijinks are not an issue that will go away either. I wonder if he did something incredible like taking citizenship somewhere else to avoid taxes. If he released records, none of us would be speculating and he could get back to whining about taxes in general without distractions.

[kitkat]

As the poster boy for the used car salesman persona (of the odometer tampering variety at least) RomneyCorp is completely understandable. They obviously have judged that keeping the secret is better than not--and depending on how much problems the former choice causes, well, that is just an indicator of how much *greater* problems the latter option would cause. It is a cost-benefit calculation (lose or lose more in this case), pure & simple and RomneyCorp is expert in *that* at least! Such calculations have been his stock & trade all his life. So, by inference upon that premise alone one can conclude with utter certainty that there is quite massive stink in those old returns--without ever even seeing what's in them.

[will]

Here it is five days later and nope, it is not going away. I bet Harry Reid is having fun here. There must be something really bad in there for Romney to stonewall. He's acting downright Nixonian, and we all know he's very capable of saying things that are flatly not true in the most earnest, Ward Cleaver way.

From CNN:
politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/05/graham-gibbs-tangle-over-reids-allegations/?hpt=hp_t3

[keystonejenks]

Aug 5, 2012 13:10:24 GMT -5 will said:

Here it is five days later and nope, it is not going away. I bet Harry Reid is having fun here. There must be something really bad in there for Romney to stonewall. He's acting downright Nixonian, and we all know he's very capable of saying things that are flatly not true in the most earnest, Ward Cleaver way.

From CNN:
politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/05/graham-gibbs-tangle-over-reids-allegations/?hpt=hp_t3

Maybe he is giggling inside like a little girl and now knows why the GOP just throws out bombs without a credible source. Maybe it's giving him a chubba.

[will]

Here's an opinion written by a foaming leftie. You can tell he's a foaming leftie because he is a tax attorney and served in the first Bush administration. Those guys are all foaming lefties. He thinks Mitt is probably a tax cheat.

www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/opinion/the-mysteries-of-mitt-romneys-financial-records.html?_r=4&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all

[jesus]

Crud, it's asking me to log in, can't see the content.

[will]

This is turning into quite a side show. You can't get much more mainstream than CNN.

www.cnn.com/2012/08/07/politics/reid-romney-taxes/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

[will]

More from CNN.

www.cnn.com/2012/08/08/opinion/canellos-kleinbard-romney-taxes/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

And now from the GOP side.

www.cnn.com/2012/08/08/opinion/rothkopf-campaign-tactics/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

The GOP will go after Reid as a means to absolve Romney's behavior, but as long as there's all this heat, smoke, and light surrounding what exactly Romney has really been up to, then the issue will stick around. The first opinion calls Romney's ethics into serious question. Of course, anybody paying attention already knows he has no soul and no ethical fiber, but the drip, drip, drip of Romney ugliness will just continue, since the pool of Romney ugliness seems to be bottomless.