Historians: Romney Makes Nixon Look Like An Open Book
Because he’s refused to release more than two years of tax returns, and has rooted his entire campaign in tax, spending, and economic growth plans that lack critical details and defy logical scrutiny, Mitt Romney’s critics, starting with senior Obama advisers, have assailed him as the least transparent candidate since Richard Nixon.
It’s a catchy attack — one that recalls not just Nixon’s candidacies, but his scandal-plagued presidency and ignominious resignation. Which is no doubt why “least transparent candidate since Nixon” has become one of Chicago’s favorite phrases.
But setting aside the Obama campaign’s partisan desire to make voters think of Watergate when they hear the name Mitt Romney, there’s something to the notion that Romney is unusually opaque compared to presidential candidates in the modern era, according to some presidential historians.
“I think the comparison to Nixon is not a very good one, because … Nixon may have been a shadier character in some respects — the Southern strategy, laundering campaign money — but he abided by the norms of the time in terms of disclosure,” said Norm Ornstein, a political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute.
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