This concern that Romney will somehow release his taxes in an October Surprise is just silly... [View all]

[Drunken Irishman]

I know we're a bit gun shy because of past elections, but you can't think of everything as a trap. Sometimes there are incompetent candidates who run incompetent campaigns. It happens all the time. It doesn't mean there is some conspiracy out there to goad the Democrats into making this into a far bigger issue than it really is - therefore undermining the party, and Obama, when Romney inevitably releases his tax returns.

Look, this isn't just a spur of the moment decision by Romney to not release his tax returns. He has been secretive in this regard dating back to his run for senate in 1994. That would have to be a pretty long conspiracy to pull the Democrats in, only to hammer them with either fake returns, or returns that are squeaky clean. It's just not logical to believe Romney has hid his tax returns for 18 years just on the off chance he would be in the position to lay some trap when he decided to run for president.

Now some have suggested this is all a Rovian trap and that, come October, Romney will release his returns and make a fool out of anyone who questioned what exactly was on those tax returns. That, too, is illogical. If anyone truly thinks that, they need to step back a bit because it's a tad ridiculous.

Think about it for a second! Mitt Romney has already taken a hit in public opinion polls because of his tax returns. Why would his campaign continue to take that hit well through October, knowing it could essentially KILL his campaign, and then release the records at the last second? Do you honestly believe, even if there was nothing on those returns that could hurt him, they would wait until October, when the election is almost wrapped up, to release them? That's absurd. You don't keep something like that floating out there for that long and expect to roll it all back mere weeks from the election.

It would be suicidal for his campaign to operate under the assumption that all the damage we've seen could be undone that quickly.

The fact is, Romney has been secretive about his tax returns since '94 and that tells me something is there. It would be amateurish to risk everything on the off chance that maybe, possibly, you know, the lingering damage you're seeing from this concern being raised could automatically be dismissed by releasing the returns in October.

It just doesn't make sense. His campaign is not run by a bunch of C-list Hollywood hack writers who have to come up with an implausible twist at the end of the movie just for the sake of it.

Romney is just a bad candidate who has run a bad campaign. But he's not stupid. The fact he's willing to let this continue to damage his reputation tells me he believes that releasing those returns will be worse for him than allowing the speculation. That's all this is. If it wasn't, he would have released his returns long ago because everyone knows how damaging this has been to his campaign and you're not just gonna roll that back, even if your returns prove okay. Once it's out there, it's out there.

Well, it's out there.