This has to end poorly for Romney. He is hemorrhaging support in some key swing states, so he is either going to have to try and continue riding out the pummeling, or he is going to have to disclose his taxes and reveal the sources and purposes of his secret offshore accounts.
My sense is that riding it out is Romney’s favored course of action, but we’ll have to see how long he can hold off his advisers on that front. In the meantime, Team Obama can continue to hammer away. Ultimately, when Romney does come clean about the secret accounts, the press will get to connect the dots between the tax shelters and Romney’s business practices which have more in common with mafia style “bust outs” than they have with an actual productive business.
For anyone who missed the classic Soprano’s episode on the practice, wikipedia defines “bust out” like so:
A “bust out” is a common tactic in the organized crime world, wherein a business’ assets and lines of credit are exploited and exhausted to the point of bankruptcy.
Sound familiar?