You're running for President, for goodness' sake.
You know you have to get more votes than the conservative base can deliver by itself. So you have to appeal to the independent/middle/undecided/leaning voting public ... and maybe even some Democrats. And when - IF - you win, you will be President of us all. So we all have a stake in learning more about you. I, for one, am willing to meet you on your terms. As I understand your terms ...
You are running on your business experience. You have had considerable success, measured by the American dream of enough money to live a comfortable life and provide for your family. Your experience as governor is relevant, too, whether you're running on the things you did or away from them. You said and did many things as governor of a liberal state. There are too many video and audio clips to slip, slide and duck without undermining your credibility. So say forthrightly what you learned as governor, what your successes were, what you'd do differently. You can change your mind, of course; we all do. But you need to deal credibly with your service in public office. (Your late entry to head a floundering, ethically challenged Olympics may also count as experience ... but if you rely on that, you need to deal squarely with those issues, too.)
Help us along here.
Your experience in government. What you said and did as Governor of Massachusetts is exceptionally relevant. Sure, you can change your mind on policy. There's no more major issue than health care legislation in the next four years! You have said it looks different on a Federal level than on a state level and you make a case for states rights. But that ducks the policy issues. "States rights" has been a cover to do things as they have always been done ... and if that's your view for the nation, the insurers and the consumers of health care, say it! IF health care is as important as you knew it was in Massachusetts - and you worked hard for it! - we deserve more of an explanation about policy than the kinds of things Southern politicians have been saying about states rights for decades.
Your experience in business. You rest heavily on your experience, you are proud of it and you've argued that all presidents should have business experience. So, tell us how you did business at Bain. The claim that you created jobs is now muddied, so set it straight! Perhaps there was a benefit to US consumers in lower prices due to outsourcing and low-wage offshoring. Programs jettisoned that weren't working. Ways you saved lots of money, shed burdensome obligations, cut debt. Closed locations that weren't paying off ... and opened others that did. These are the kinds of decisions business people make, so be proud of it and describe it for us!
There are parallels between Bain and your presidency: you are looking at ongoing operations which you truly believe are not going well and that you believe can be made to work much better .... or are not needed at all. This is what you did at Bain ... so be straight with us about what you'd do with America. Show us why those attributes, that experience, make you the right president for the next four years.
You are campaigning to run government. We deserve to know how you'd go about it and what programs, departments and agencies are your highest priorities to be cut or re-framed. It's what your Tea Party/conservative/libertarian base wants. Come on, it shouldn't be hard to be straight with the whole American public.
Your wealth. You are a successful person ... and that has made you wealthy. We all know that. Presidential candidates disclose their tax returns. That's somewhat an invasion of privacy, Yes, but you gave that up when you decided to run. Your character, your circumstances, your success IS at issue. And you made it so.
It's time to put several more years of Federal tax returns into the public record. Yes, you will be subject to criticism, second-guessing and disclosures of private circumstances. You think that's intrusive? When you're in the Oval Office, showing offshore accounts will be child's play next to how closely you and your family will be scrutinized and second-guessed.
Another basic issue here is that you are well within the very upper strata - born into it, raised by it and passing it along to your next generations. But how about us and our next generations? How will you connect with middle class Americans? How about those "below" the middle class - the poor, the unhealthy, the homeless, the "illegals", the unemployed, the poor-and-retired? They are Americans, too, Mitt, and you want to be their president. You have to show them and those of us who are lucky not to be in those categories how you deal with those segments of American life, because many of us do care about the rest of us!
Your philosophy of government and governance. We are well aware that Grover Norquist, conservative pundits and commentators galore and a large number of Tea Party members of Congress and others honestly, earnestly believe we should have much smaller government devoted to doing many fewer things. Give us your vision of what a smaller government would do and - much more important - what you would have it not do. Don't give us that waste-fraud-and-abuse stuff or we-will-do-it-better-than-Obama. What would you jettison and do without? What would you privatize? If you are going to reduce regulation, name your top ten with the biggest impact on business and the communities of interest the regulations were supposedly protecting. Be square here; acknowledge there are tradeoffs. If you are going to disband departments and agencies or sub-parts of them, name them and describe what you'd change.
It's time to put specifics on the table.
If an advisor tells you that these questions have a liberal bias, you remind them what business people do when they set forth proposals and business models, present budgets, make pitches. Generalities don't cut it with investors, potential partners, executives and key employees you're trying to recruit, media people you need to impress ... and generalities won't work with many of us voters.
Don't bury us in papers. Just talk directly to us ... and tell us straight.