Hey, Romney: Show us your numbers

Mitt's campaign claims they have strong internal polls -- why not release them?

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD

By now, we all know polls showing Obama winning the election are biased liberal media hogwash intended to embolden Democrats and dispirit Republicans. At least that’s what the hackier reaches of the conservative media, and some on the Romney campaign, want us to believe. If only someone had other, unskewed polls that haven’t been compromised by the mainstream media’s Obama apologetics. There’s the right-leaning Rasmussen, but its surveys have been found to be “biased and inaccurate” and it’s just one outfit. Even Fox News’ polling unit has apparently been compromised by the left-wing media conspiracy.

Actually, someone does have numbers showing Romney doing better than in the mainstream polls — the Romney campaign. Rich Beeson, Romney’s political director, told reporters on the campaign bus that they have internal polls showing Romney in good shape: “The only point I want to make is that we trust our internal polls.” “I kind of hope the Obama campaign is basing their campaign on what the public polls say,” Beeson said, suggesting the public polls are wrong. So what do the internals say? “I’m not going to get into the specifics of what our polls say or don’t say,” Beeson said.

You’d think Mitt Romney would have learned the lesson of his tax returns. For months, as he avoided releasing more than two years’ worth of returns, Romney essentially asked people to trust him that the returns contained nothing compromising. By merely releasing his returns, Romney could have immediately shamed Harry Reid for alleging that Romney paid no taxes for 10 years. But he kept them private. (On Friday, the campaign released a letter from Romney’s accountant summarizing 20 years’ worth of returns, but not the returns themselves.)

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http://www.salon.com/2012/09/27/hey_romney_show_us_your_numbers/