The Romney Tax Filings Flap shows no signs of abating. Dana Bash (who somewhat-corroborated Harry Reid's claim**) just posted an article describing how Reid has really cornered Romney on this issue.
Update 2:30pm Eastern: CNN.com is, for the moment, promoting Bash's piece as their main story.
**It's worth keeping in mind what Reid claimed and what he didn't. Reid did not claim that he (Reid) knows that Romney paid zero taxes for 10 years. He claimed that a well-sourced confidant called him and told him that he (the confidant) knows that Romney paid zero taxes for 10 years. (UPDATE: DKos member zqxj, in comments below, notes that Reid later expanded his claim and said that multiple confidants, all credible, have told him (Reid) that Romney paid zero taxes for several years.)
Excerpts from the CNN article and other sources, below. Plus, also below, the Guardian UK piles on!
Dana Bash gets right to it here:
Republican sources say they're in a Catch-22 situation on how to reply to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's claims that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney went 10 years without paying taxes.
They understand that they're taking Reid's bait and that responding to his unsubstantiated claims against Romney keeps alive the issue of Romney's refusing to release his tax returns.
Still, these GOP sources say they feel that if they do not respond to such a serious charge from such a high-ranking Democrat, it will look like a tacit admission Reid is right.
Yup.
No wonder so many of them are going apoplectic and ad-hominem in their counterattacks on Harry Reid. You can almost see and hear it, the spittle and hiss of a cornered raccoon.
Reid's chief of staff, David Krone, has weighed in saying that he knows who the confidant is, and that in his (Krone's) view the confidant is 100% credible.
If you google the three phrases or words "Mitt Romney" "Harry Reid" taxes, you get a whopping 69 million hits or more. Google's search results may be inflated and questionable but it's likely that hundreds of thousands of these hits are legitimate news articles or links or comments or blog posts, etc. Basically: this story is everywhere and it's now growing stronger roots in our national political conversation. It is not going away anytime soon!
And it's getting attention not only nationwide but overseas too. Today the Guardian UK chimes in. They lead off by listing some of Romney's main problems at this point in the campaign: he trails Obama in the overall polls and swing state polls; he's polling more unfavorable than favorable, and by a considerable margin; and (prominent in the Guardian's view) his international trip was a flub-fest.
Ok, well, actually those are all his problems – big problems, in fact. But, amazingly, Mitt Romney may have an even bigger one. After releasing two abridged years of tax returns, he has steadfastly insisted that he won't release any more. This is an issue that isn't going away – and one that has the potential to haunt him every single day of the 2012 campaign.
(........)
Considering that Romney already scores badly in the typical poll question asking whether he can understand the problems of ordinary Americans, the tax issue has the potential to remain a political millstone around his neck. What's more, it becomes a means of tarring Romney with all the negative imagery the Obama campaign wants to apply to him – that he's out-of-touch, that he is solicitous of the 1% at the expense of the 99%; that he doesn't play by the same rules as ordinary Americans.
Above all, it clears the decks for a full-scale assault on Romney's own tax plan, which favors the wealthy, like him, rather than the middle class.
Other publications are fast coming to the same conclusion as Dana Bash. Here's
Business Insider, calling Harry Reid "the Democratic Party's evil genius"!
Let's break it down:
~ Romney has backed himself into a corner that will be tough to get out of. If he relents to Reid's demands, then Reid wins. If he doesn't, then Reid and other Democrats will keep making it an issue.
~ Reid has pretty successfully made this issue a loaded question. The only way to completely disprove Reid is to release the tax returns. And if he doesn't, it will add to the perception that there's something veiled behind his "put up or shut up" words. Because...
~ Keep in mind that a majority of voters — and, crucially, Independent voters — want Romney to release his tax returns, according to Gallup. In the clearest sign that Romney has bungled this issue, most people think that a presidential candidate's tax returns are irrelevant, except in Romney's case.
~ Reid doesn't have to worry about re-election — if, at 76 years of age, he will seek re-election — until 2016.
And here's the
Christian Science Monitor, opining that "Reid may be bluffing, but he's winning" and saying that several "Republicans are continuing to say that Romney should release more than the two returns he has already put out." The CSM goes on to list several of these Republicans, including Haley Barbour and George Will and William Kristol, etc etc. Romney may not want to face reality but he is in the weeds and losing, badly, on this issue.
Obama has not yet directly smacked Romney on his refusal to release his tax filings, but there are months to go and if Romney doesn't do it before the TV debates, the smack may well come then on live TV and it will leave a mark like none other -- it'll make Reid look like the mere warmup act.
Daily Kos is sure doing its part to keep this issue alive. I hope it goes even further and knocks Romney out politically. It can. And not only that, this is a two-for-one special. It can both damage Romney to the point of losing the presidency, and it can simultaneously engender some real national conversation on wealth, taxation and fairness. The kind of real conversation that Occupy Wall Street started to generate before they were shut down by the establishment and then somewhat forgotten by mainstream media. Romney's awkward fall and defeat, on the issue of taxation and wealth and severe economic injustice, could turn out to be a very good thing for America. I'd say "let's keep the pressure on" but that is as unnecessary as saying "let's breathe." I repeat, Daily Kos has been absolutely terrific in keeping this issue alive and on the front burner. Hope this diary is a helpful contribution to that effort.