It worked for W. and cocaine

at the same rate previous presidential candidates have done.

Refusing a background check disqualifies applicants for jobs. This is no different.

The story has legs because his own party is giving it legs.

he wasn't running for president based on his National Guard service or his history of cocaine use. It's the same reason the Reverend Wright attacks on BHO didn't work in 2008.

Romney, on the other hand, is basing his entire presidential campaign on his business experience and his ability to improve the economy. His tax returns are an integral part of this -- they would explain how he ran his businesses and how he handled his personal finances.

If he doesn't release them he is essentially saying, "I'm not going to show you how I manage my own finances, but you should trust me to manage the nation's finances."

It's hard to believe that the Romney campaign thought they would be able to sweep the tax returns under the rug, but here we are.

that he would still have been a viable candidate? I don't. The press and the American public allowed him to have plausible deniability. I agree that it seems nuts that Romney thought the taxes could be swept under the rug, but I would have said it was nuts that Bush could sweep being coked up for 20 years under the rug as well.

They didn't care. When he found Jesus, as far as they were concerned everything prior to that was swept away on a wave of forgiveness. I'm certain that many of the veterans who voted for w recognized that he was essentially a draft dodger. Clearly they didn't care enough not to vote for him.

Romney doesn't have the "born again" excuse.

regardless of what anyone thought, Bush was able to put an explosive issue to bed simply by saying "I'm not going to talk about that". It worked. It appears to me that the Romney campaign thought they could essentially take the same approach here. "You people have seen enough", and everyone would move on. I'm not saying the issues are the same, only speculating as to how on earth Romney could have thought he wouldn't have to deal with this issue.

All his life he's gotten away with anything he wanted to do or not do. It's important to stop him. He would be a worse president than w.

I'm saying that if Bush had been running for president in 2004 as a staunch drug warrior, his history of drug use would have been a much bigger story. Because the drugs issue wasn't a big part of his platform, he was more easily able to stonewall the cocaine story.

Same with his military service. Military service was an issue in 2004 but only because John Kerry was running hard on his service in Vietnam. Bush wasn't running on his own military service -- he was running on fighting terrorism and winning the war in Iraq. If Bush had been going around saying "Vote for me because my military record is second to none!" then he wouldn't have been able to dodge the issue.

Since Romney is running for president on a platform of "Vote for me, I'm a financial wizard!" it is indeed baffling that he thought he could get through the campaign without talking about his own finances.

It's generally accepted that a presidential candidate will release their tax returns

It's not considered an underhanded, dirty politics move to request them. This isn't the result of a journalistic ("liberal media" investigation. This isn't based on rumors or anything one could dismiss as 'sour grapes'. This is a common request which for some reason the GOP presidential candidate refuses to grant.

This is what has some Republicans worried. How can they spin this to make it look nefarious when it's something they themselves request regularly from an opponent?

although I think the context of the campaign is important. Imagine if in some alternate universe Romney was running for president in 2004 when the big issues of the day were terrorism and war. I think it would have been easier for him to refuse to release his tax returns in such a political climate because they would not be as relevant to the campaign.

Since the big issues of this campaign are the economy and tax fairness, his refusal to release his tax returns is a huge deal.

There's too much speculation as to if he's the business genius come to save the country with his mad skills as he claims, or just a corporate raider. At this point President Obama's ads are proving the latter. He's going to have to come up with some way to turn the tide to make it appear he's the former.

It would be so easy to disprove the "corporate raider" meme if he had semi normal records to prove otherwise. Instead he refuses to even release his tax records for our public scrutiny. Something which we, the American voting population, has come to view as a common practice. Then there's that pesky Bain issue still lurking about unresolved. What's a voter to make of all this secrecy?

As I said, he's doing his campaign no favors by not releasing his tax records. Instead, so far, he's making it appear as if he's afraid face the scrutiny of the voters and let them form their own opinions on his skills.

It's got to be a nerve wracking situation for the GOP strategist to be in. Only the party faithful are going to buy the current candidate they're selling, and there's not enough of them to win a presidential election.

I'd agree with you. But he is refusing to do something that is always done. No one can help but wonder why he is so stubbornly refusing to do something that all presidential candidates always do. To refuse to do something that others have not done is not something that sticks out as much.

I think they are nuts to think they could slide by, I just think the hubris of George W. Bush in making a career of sliding by made them think they could do it.

President Obama and his camp remain a solid step ahead of him.

Love it!

That's because Gore was associated with Clinton,
and much of America is still a very Puritan nation.

Obama didn't really have much of a past history
to speak of, so people tried to manufacture
several problems for him. It didn't work because
Obama is himself squeaky clean and quite likeable.

Romney is dirty as they come and very unlikeable.
Even Bush was likeable.