This morning the Romney campaign just didn't double down, they went full fledged nuclear in calling Senator Harry Reid a dirty liar! The issue of what Reid said, would probably have gone the way of the Bain issue (the back burner) fairly quickly, although the issue of Romney's taxes would still be around. But now that the Romney camp has decided to go nuclear, this issue will take front stage for awhile longer.
The questions becomes, will the public want Reid to give up his source, or will the public want Romney to hand over his tax returns and settle this once and for all, and more importantly, who will the media back.
I find that last question to be very interesting. Will the news media really pressure Harry Reid to give up an anonymous source? What's left of investigative journalism in this country owes it's existence to anonymous sources. It would be the height of hypocrisy for the news media to demand Reid give up his source while they continue to use anonymous sources.
More below the fold.
First, Here are the quotes from the Huffington post.
Reid is a dirty liar
From RNC Chairman Reince Priebus:
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus waded into the Harry Reid-Mitt Romney tax drama on Sunday, calling the Senate majority leader a "dirty liar" for his accusation that Romney didn't pay any taxes for a decade.
"As far as Harry Reid is concerned, listen, I know you might want to go down that road. I’m not going to respond to a dirty liar," Priebus told ABC's "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos.
And From Senator Lindsey Grahem:
Harry Reid is a liar
“I’ve been around this town for a while,” Graham told Candy Crowley on CNN’s "State of the Union." “I actually like Harry. But what he did on the Senate floor is so out of bounds. I think he’s lying about it.”
So how will the public respond? I'm not sure. I don't have a lot of confidence in the public (only the few swing voters matter) to reason things out and make a good decision. But lets look at some possible scenarios.
1) Romney decides to hand over his taxes.
There's probably so much stuff that's much worse than not paying any taxes in his returns, I give this almost no chance.
2) They just keep accusing each other.
This is probably the most likely scenario. But it seems to me, the public is just going to say to Romney, just turn over your taxes and lets move on to more important things. Romney loses on this since the tax issue isn't going away.
3) What if Reid's source decides to come forward? What would this prove? It wouldn't prove anything, but the Romney camp would now have to attack a former Bain investor with the same ferociousness as they're now attacking Reid. Now Romney is calling Reid and a former Bain investor "dirty liars". Now what does the public think? It seems to me it would put even MORE pressure on Romney to stop calling everyone liars and to just release the darn tax returns! It'll be very interesting to see if Reid had this in mind all along, a little 11D chess perhaps?
4) Reid doesn't give up the source, but he puts a prominent member of the news media in contact with the source to confirm the allegations.
I don't think the media is foolish enough to go after someone for not revealing their sources so I think Romney is in a box and the more his surrogates shout "liar" the deeper he's going to dig this hole.
What do you think?