Bumped because the DNC just released  a video that aims directly at the point included within this post.   Again, once they get Mitt on the ticket this type of ridicule will increase exponentially.

I don’t know how to put it except to be brutally blunt and honest about Mitt Romney and the trap conservatives are walking in to. 

A couple of weeks ago Team Romney announced they would NOT be releasing his income tax returns.   Several people thought this was a strange decision from a campaign that had strategically taken very smart positions and manuevers in the election process.   But the real issue with this is how it cuts right to the heart of Mitts’ biggest flaw and it plays directly into the Axelrod – Plouffe strategy to re-elect Obama.

As Professor Jacobson rightly states:

The most likely scenario is that almost all of Romney’s income is taxed at the 15% long-term capital gains rate, playing right into the hands of Team Obama in its Secretaries versus Bosses campaign theme.

Many commenters here believed Romney was setting a trap for Obama to complain, since Romney could say something along the lines of “I’ll release my tax returns when you release your college records….”

And indeed, one of Romney’s sons tried that line yesterday but stepped in it because he demanded not only college transcripts but Obama’s original birth certificate.  Feigned outrage followed, of course, from Team Obama.

The “tax returns for college transcripts” approach will not work.  There are effective ways to question Obama’s narrative, but holding the Republican nominee’s tax returns hostage is not one of those ways.

Romney has run a pretty brilliant campaign so far, so it is hard to understand why he is walking into this dead-end alleyway.

Marshall finds the same issue I did:

So what’s the deal with Romney’s tax returns?  Or more specifically, what’s the deal with Mitt Romney letting himself get more and more nippy press by refusing to release his tax returns when virtually every serious presidential candidate of the last 40 years has done it?  Allow me to explain.

We already know Mitt Romney is a really, really wealthy guy.  But there have been a lot of rich presidential candidates.  And, though he was born to wealth, Romney also made a lot of money himself.  He’s also said he’ll release information about his wealth, his assets … a lot of stuff.  But just not the tax returns.

So what’s the deal?  It’s pretty simple.  We might say that a specter is haunting Mitt Romney — the specter of the Buffett Rule.

There is no worse question for a presidential candidate than “what is he hiding?”

So what is Romney hiding that is worth having the conversation be about his refusal to release income tax returns rather the disaster known as the Obama presidency?

Given the narrative of the Occupy crowd railing against the Wall Street Barons and the 1%, we must be honest and admit the next year will be plagued with Capitol Hill drum beats of taxation and budget/deficit fights.   Indeed the Obama position is already visible ‘The Bush Tax Cuts Must End’.   What better way for the entire campaign season to be deflected away from Obama’s record than to run against a Mega-Rich representative of the establishment class Republican candidate that is mired in personal tax questioning.

Alexrod/Plouffe will frame Romney as part of the 1% problem.   The sheeple Occupiers will buy into this narrative against Romney as evidence of the problem – How unfair is wealth?.  The college crowds will find their rallying call to support Obama in his fight against the “rich”.   We know they are blind to see the obvious hypocrisy, and with the media selling the talking point and keeping the attention on Richey Rich Mittens  it will be an easy sell.   Meanwhile the Obama record will remain out of the conversation.

Romney will spend the entire year back on his heals defending himself from the narrative team Obama will create.   And here is the worst part, Romney cannot separate himself from the image they will create.   Romney is the consummate politician, he has no connection to the common sense conservatives in fly over country, he is plastic, he is an elite and he is indeed mega wealthy.  He is an easy target for attachment of constructed images because quite frankly he fits the role.   The image already exists, all that’s left to do is put a dose of isolation on him and then top him off with the cherry of ridicule.   Not a difficult task.

Add to the “purposefully missing tax returns” the issues of Romneycare, the flips, the flops, the social liberal policies, the endless ammunition from the previous Ted Kennedy Senate bid attack files, and what you have is one easy campaign strategy to continue.   Meanwhile the Tea Party conservative base is left disenfranchised without energy or motivation.