This is nothing new. When I was studying political science in the early '90s it was called "the Washington Post Rule": a canny politician should never put anything in writing unless he would be comfortable seeing it on the front page of the Washington Post.

(Why the Post? Woodward and Bernstein: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_President%27s_Men I have to believe the rule goes back even further than that, but presumably before their time it was called something else.)

I'm sure the idea's been around for even longer than that, though. I bet Benjamin Franklin (a publisher, among other things) must've had a choice quote about that...

1 Thessalonians 5:22 King James Bible

I'm sure if you dug around in Buddhist or Confucianist writings you'd find something similar. Being mindful of how your actions look is very useful in avoiding trouble.

It's happened before. Look at how society has evolved on questions of politicians' drug use, for instance. In 1970 admitting to have ever used marijuana would have been an instant career killer for a politician. By 1992 Bill Clinton could admit having used it, as long as he hedged the admission with a bunch of caveats -- he didn't inhale, etc. And by 2008 Barack Obama could openly admit having smoked pot regularly without any negative repercussions, as long as it was only in his wayward youth.

Yes, a drug test and full physical beforehand. This is the most powerful office in the land, not some book promotion tour.

Heck, look at the lineup before the final nomination this year - every candidate (and the final nomination) had serious issues and people voted for them anyway, so squeaky clean is not the problem - full disclosure is.

If more people came to see that perfectly capable people are often not squeaky clean in largely irrelevant matters we would all be better off.

Imagine a country where politicians don't live in fear that the public might learn they sometimes spark a bong, or once cheated on their spouse, or like people of the same gender as themselves from time to time.

Of course, it's just his taxes, and I feel like the only reasoning people are upset with Romney over this is that they are thinking "What's he hiding? If you have nothing to hide..." which most of us probably dismiss as bad thinking in the usual context. If the People want to make it a law for candidates to disclose their tax information, let it be done, right now he's just breaking a 40 year old precedent. (It seems McCain did the same thing and only released two years--was there an outcry about that? I don't remember, there were so many other juicier attacks. If "you're rich!" is the only thing they can attack you on you're doing alright.)

I have worked for a government entity in a policy making role, and one of my obligations was to annually file a detail of my investments, business dealings and other things in a manner that balances the public's need to be assured of my integrity with my need for privacy in my affairs.

Disclosure of medical data is an even more egregious ethical and privacy violation. Why should I as a political figure need to publicly disclose my use of narcotics to manage pain from a chronic medical condition? Why should I need disclose the use of drugs that imply a potentially embarrassing medical condition?

Medical diagnoses affect people's view of people. I don't want otherwise good people excluded from public service because they are HIV positive.

It's a job application - for the most powerful position in the USA, arguably the world. I want a decade of financial history, credit check, drug test, last five places you own/lived, etc.

Personal: how much do your impressions of a candidate's personal qualities (trustworthiness, courage, honor, etc.) determine your vote.

Political: how much do your political desires, i.e., policies the candidates have pledged to adopt that will influence our interpersonal (political) lives (taxes, social services, regulations, etc.) determine your vote.

Because of your the question, I'm guessing your vote is determined by the political.

The most cynical about politics (e.g., all politicians are corrupt) tend to be the most political.

And vice versa: the candidate will choose the right thing to do, because he is so intelligent, trustworthy, knowledgable, honorable, etc., etc. It may not be what I think is the right thing to do, but he is so intelligent, trustworthy, knowledgable, honorable, etc., etc., he will know better than me.

I feel like Hacker News is probably dominated by political voters. But not everyone feels the same as Hacker News habituants. And to play devil's advocate, if I were faced with the collapse of the financial system in 2008, and I were told "Decide." My response would be, "Err." I might not want to be so political in my thinking. I might just want to choose someone who seems great and say, "Deal with it."

And of course, as with so many determinations made by us wonderful beings called humans, it is almost never an either/or determination, and there is a rich interplay between the two that is hard to fathom let alone to model. If you fundamentally don't trust a person, it won't matter how much their political agenda matches your own. Also, "the personal is political."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6142843-7.html

When I rolled over my 401k from Sun into a personally managed IRA with my broker we put parts into things like "Fidelity Large Cap Fund" or "Emerging Markets Fund" which were pretty opaque except for the prospectus that came around once a quarter. So I'm wondering what the outrage is here.

But if you're in financial, you can use all kinds of loopholes -- equity swaps, blocker corporations, fee-waivers+fund-investment in order to treat income as cap gains.

Then, if America votes in Romney and Ryan, we may end up with even lower capital gains rates, meaning financiers can escape most taxes, while ordinary people are faced with inescapeable income taxes.

I don't mind people investing in risky ventures, but they must pay taxes on their winnings like everyone else. And as Buffet said, the idea that higher taxes will scare away entrepreneurs isn't historically supportable. There are risk takers in every environment, it wasn't like before 1980 there weren't any entrepreneurs.

Everything Romney's done has been legal, if impolitic. I challenge everyone acting like he's the antichrist to show us their tax returns where they made a gift deposit to the US Treasury, because that's essentially what a lot of people expected him to do.

Perhaps donate some/lots to a real bona-fide charity (this does not include your church - that's just influence peddling within your own community). Or maybe doing some angel investing in potentially meaningful pie-in-the-sky ventures?

Bill Gates is an example of a rich person doing something worthwhile with his money.

If Mitt Romney lawfully lowered his taxes, more power to him. I use TurboTax to lawfully lower mine. The problem is with the laws.