In The News: If Romney vetted himself, his tax returns would KO shot at White House (FOX News)
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has what some would consider an unlikely opponent: FOX News. Despite being regularly accused (for somewhat obvious reasons) of being an arm of the Republican party, the FOX News editorial linked to above makes a pretty striking argument against Romney as president of the U.S.A.
In short, the writer (Joe Trippi) says anyone on Romney’s VP short list is going to have to turn over more than 1 year of tax returns (the number that Romney has released to voters), and any person with a tax return like Romney’s isn’t going to make the cut.
What candidate for president — even a GOP candidate for president — would pick a guy as a running mate who would only hand over one year of tax returns, as Mitt Romney has done?
Trippi points out that Romney submitted 23 years’ worth of tax returns to John McCain’s campaign four years ago, and didn’t make the cut as VP candidate on that ticket.
John McCain knows why he didn’t pick Mitt Romney in 2008. And he may know many of the answers to the questions raised by the release of Mitt Romney’s single tax return in 2012.
Of course, we all know how McCain finished that selection process (Sarah Palin), and we all know how well that went (lost the election by 10 million votes, with less than a third of the Electoral College votes). We’ll never know if McCain would’ve done better with Romney as a running mate.
But what I’m wondering is why FOX seems as anti-Romney as it has always seemed anti-Democrat. There’s been talk about FOX owner Rupert Murdoch not taking a liking to Romney, which seems like a troubling state of affairs for Republicans.
What’s your take?
* Do you think Romney should release more tax returns (like every other candidate in the last 30 yeas has done)? If he did, would that hurt or help his cause?
* Do you think it makes a difference whether FOX takes an editorial stance against or for him?
* Does your knowledge of Romney’s single public tax return sway your vote one way or the other?
In case you’re curious, here are my answers to the above questions:
1) Yes, I think he should release more tax returns. And I think it would hurt his cause (I’m guessing, assuming he has a reason for not releasing them).
2) Yes, though perhaps not a deal-breaker. It always helps to get a little favorable press.
3) Admittedly, I wasn’t going to vote for him anyway. If I’d been on the fence, his tax return would’ve swung me away from him.
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1, I don’t care. Unless he’s been fraudulent, it doesn’t seem important to me.
2, yes. One thing the last election showed is the influence of popular media.
3, no. I’m not voting for him anyway.
@Shari: Fair enough. :-)