Much to nobody's surprise, Paul Ryan is declining to release more than two years' of his tax returns at the direction of the Romney campaign. Still waiting on those, of course, since the campaign isn't exactly lightning fast when it comes to tax disclosures. Still waiting on those 2011 returns, Mitt, to bring you up from 1 to 2 years!
The McCain Campaign, of course, in 2008 got 23 years worth of Mitt Romney's tax returns, so we know he's got 1985-2007 returns pretty handy someplace. But in dismissing the importance of these tax returns, McCain said that Palin was a "better candidate" than Romney was.
Sarah Palin disclosed two years' of tax returns in the 2008 Presidential election, but submitted a dozen years' returns to the McCain campaign. (Dick Cheney, who was, shall we say, in favor of secrecy in many areas,released 10 years of his tax records prior to the 2000 election.)
Tim Pawlenty let the cat out of the bag when he was cornered by George Stephanopolos, while claiming to have forgotten the exact number of years the Romney campaign asked for, said it was "several". More than two. But not so many he apparently thought it was, um, "lots". I'll believe T-Paw here and maybe the Romney campaign only asked for a couple of years' worth.
So we are left with but one conclusion: the Romney campaign didn't investigate and vet potential running mates as thoroughly as the McCain campaign did Sarah Palin. Which in turn found her to be, um, a "better candidate" than Romney.