This is now becoming the Republican's deepest and darkest nightmare: a populist issue that serves as a lightning rod for all the rage that fueled the Tea Party movement.
Anyone who's lost a job, anyone with an out-of-work neighbor or relative, anyone without health insurance--even anyone who just resents their employer--will now look on Mitt with even more scorn than was heaped on the first George Bush when he didn't know how a supermarket worked.
They will blame Romney for factories closing, they will blame him for businesses going bankrupt, they will blame him for the housing crisis, they will blame him because everybody's money is tight, except for his.
And there's no way he can recover from that kind of scorn. It will destroy his campaign--and could possibly destroy the campaigns of Republican governors and mayors and legislators.
And if he releases the tax returns, it gets worse.
Obama may have sewn up the election even before the Republican convention.