A candidate’s unforced errors

The coming presidential campaign ought to be about candidates articulating clear visions for where and how they wish to lead this nation. It is likely to be at least as much about a lot of quirks, idiosyncrasies and personality traits, real or imagined, mostly as painted by people other than the candidates themselves.

Mitt Romney, the Republican now most likely to be carrying his party’s banner into the race against President Obama, could do a great deal to turn the debate back to the high ground of policy and governance. He should respond to the widespread calls, not just from his opponents, to release his recent tax returns and come clean in other ways about his personal fortune, whence it came and what, if anything, he does to keep it out of the view of the IRS.

	Join the Discussion
	Post a Comment

Sadly, for him and for us, every time Romney has tried to address the issue in recent days, he has only made things worse. He repeatedly displays a horrible tin ear for the political and media ramifications of his apparently off-the-cuff statements about his personal financial situation.

Despite the fact that financial disclosure forms report his worth to be between $190 million and $250 million (which is as precise as such forms require you to be) he tries to make the blue-collar voters of America think he feels their pain.

And then he goes on to say some very foolish things, such as, "I like firing people," or waving away the $374,327 he made in speaking fees in one year as "not very much."

For weeks, Romney has been resisting the entreaties of both his rivals and the press to release his federal tax returns, which his father George Romney did when he was running for president in 1968, and which would contain much more detail about the sources and taxability of his wealth than do the much shallower disclosure forms.

Now it is being reported that Romney has as much as $8 million socked away in investments legally housed in the Cayman Islands. He says these investments are, for one thing, run by a blind trust and, for another, kept in taxable investments rather than the tax-dodging type the Caymans are known for.

But even if he’s right, one has to wonder about the political talents of a presidential candidate who would allow his name and the word "Cayman" to appear in the same paragraph.

These distractions not only hurt Romney’s chances to win the nomination and then the election, they also harm the ability to the American people to take the true measure of both candidates and make an informed decision. And they are, for the most part, unforced errors on Romney’s part.

He will have to do better. A lot better.