Months after he mathematically locked up the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney remains a political hairball that GOP insiders -- conservative and otherwise -- wish they could cough up before the convention in Tampa, Fla., next month. The likelihood of their doing so is slim to none, party sources said. But that doesn't mean that they are happy to have Mitt atop the ticket.
That is the real, unspoken political meaning behind the remarkable, rising chorus of voices calling on the presumptive party nominee to release more of his federal tax returns to the public.
"The fact is, no one likes the guy or believes in him," said the campaign manager for a former Romney rival, who declined to be quoted by name because his former boss is on record supporting Romney's campaign against incumbent President Barack Obama.
"Look back at our 2008 primaries," he said. "Who did all the other candidates dislike? Romney. Look at this year. Who did all the other candidates dislike? Romney. No one wants Obama to win, but no one likes the guy who is running against him."
Republican leaders, especially conservatives, see Romney as a malleable, cynical power-grabber without principle or compass. They warned voters that Romney would be unable to take the fight to Obama on health care because he had fostered a similar program as governor of Massachusetts, and they argued that a wealthy, well-connected son of privilege was not a good spokesman for selling free-market ideas to the middle-class.
Over the last week, a disparate array of Republican and conservative leaders have called on Romney to do what he is clearly loathe to do: release several years if not a decade or more of his federal tax returns. It is an unspoken form of payback. |
