What He's Hiding

KEY MESSAGE

 What's worse for a politician than not paying income taxes for 10 years?

Whatever Mitt is hiding.

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THE RUNDOWN

We know what's in Mitt Romney's tax plan -- middle-class Americans pay more in taxes so he can pay less. But we don't know what's in his tax returns. Romney won't release more than just two years of returns -- or even the full records for those years. Even though --

• 1968: Romney's father, George Romney, released 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president. "One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show," he warned at the time.

• 1994: Romney demanded that Senator Ted Kennedy, his opponent in a Senate race, release his tax returns.

• 2002: Romney demanded that his opponent in the Massachusetts governor's race release her husband's tax returns. His campaign asserted "She can't claim to be disclosing anything until she discloses the returns," demanding to know "what is she hiding?"

• 2004: Contrary to Romney's claims, Sen. John Kerry put out a total of 20 years of tax returns by the time he ran for president. In fact, throughout his political career Sen. Kerry never withheld his tax returns from the public.

• 2008: Romney gave Sen. John McCain's then-presidential campaign 23 years' worth of tax returns going back to 1985. If just one of Romney's tax return is more than 500 pages, two decades is more than 10,000 pages withheld from the public.

• The Post-Watergate Era: Presidents and Vice Presidents have routinely released many years of their tax returns, including President Obama and Vice President Biden (more than 10 years' worth each).

We develop messaging by aggregating, analyzing and distilling polling, tested messaging, and expert recommendations, and monitoring the media to identify what is and isn't working. See here for some of the experts and organizations we draw on.