Republicans have difficulty anticipating problems. Whether it's how to stabilize a country in the middle-east after over-throwing it's government or realizing that making healthcare be affordable would make U.S. businesses be more competitive they just don't seem to able to plan ahead and see how things are going to play out in the future .
I think this lack of foresight is about to manifest itself in the presidential campaign as Romney has already demonstrated a complete lack of forethought in his tax arrangements. He could have not used tax avoidance schemes or off-shore accounts and he would still be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Romney's pick for the VP position is likely to be someone who has hopes of having a political future in the GOP. Partly because Romney doesn't seem to like any of the other senior GOP nominee contenders (i.e. Newt or Santorum) but also because he needs someone to fire up the GOP base, which Romney must know is lacking in his campaign and it's only the younger candidates (Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan etc.) that meet this requirement.
Whoever it is must know that any future career they aspire to have could be devastated if it emerged during the campaign that they were the VP pick of someone who had illegally dodged paying taxes. Even if Romney has done nothing actually illegal and instead has merely done something morally objectionable (e.g. skipped paying the full tithes to his church), then that revelation would still be harmful to any VP's future political career.
So when Romney does make someone the offer of being his VP pick, the conversation is very likely to go like this:
Romney: Do you want to be my vice-president nominee?
Potential VP: What are you hiding in your taxes returns?
Romney: I can't tell you that, if you find out what's in my tax returns you won't want to be my VP pick!
Potential VP: Er, okay then - no I don't want to be your VP nominee
Even when Romney has found someone either dull-witted or desperate enough to be his vice-president nominee, they are going to be put in an impossible position by the most obvious question every journalist will ask them:
Journalist: Has Mitt Romney shown you what he's hiding in his tax returns?
If the VP nominee answers "Yes, but there's nothing in there that should concern anyone" then the journalist has the obvious followup question of why is Romney willing to show you his tax returns but not the American people?
If the VP nominee answers "No" then they would look like a puppet that doesn't have the full trust of the nominee or are so desperate for the VP position that they would take it without being trusted by the presidential candidate. Also, too, the Democrats can run another round of ads saying "Mitt Romney doesn't even want his VP to know his secret tax deals".
So here's the prediction. Romney is still hoping to not reveal his tax returns but would be pressured into releasing them by any serious VP pick. So either:
i) Willard will release his taxes about a week before a serious VP pick is announced.
or
ii) We are going to see a VP pick that makes the Sarah Palin pick look like a wise and sensible choice. I'm talking Herman Cain levels of derpitude.
