If anyone, Ron Paul is the voice of the Libertarian, neonationalist, racist wing of the GOP in 2012. That's Romney's base. Those are the people his VP nominee must speak to. These are the people he needs organizing and GOTV'ing.
If Ron Paul's talking about this, Romney had better listen up.
[Paul:] "In the scheme of things politically, you know, it looks like releasing tax returns is what the people want."
but the former Massachusetts governor suggested Tuesday he had no plans to change course.
...
"In the political environment that exists today, the opposition research of the Obama campaign is looking for anything they can use... And I'm simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through..."
Evidently the Romney campaign was NOT pleased.
Soon after this story broke, Ron Paul's campaign manager contradicted Paul and released this statement:
“Dr. Paul is not calling on Gov. Romney to release his tax returns... Paul’s campaign has a “very cordial and respectful” relationship with Romney’s.
But that's not flying with the media:
Paul joins Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley on the nascent, tiny list of GOP politicians who have said publicly that Romney should oblige his critics’ requests.
As for the "cordial and respectful" relationship, here's what Paul said after he recommended Romney release the tax returns. Sure sounds cordial to me (LOL):
The important issue is [what] the two candidates seem to agree on. They don’t really disagree with militarism overseas, they don’t disagree with the Federal Reserve system and the bailouts, and they don’t disagree on basically whether the role of federal government is wealth redistribution through welfare.
And unsurprisingly, more cordial behavior from the Romney camp:
The Texas congressman, who is retiring at the end of the year, also said the Romney campaign has not asked him to speak at the Republican National Convention.
“Not that I know of. No, I haven’t been invited to do that,” he said.
Romney is losing them. He should be VERY very worried.