South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Over at the blog Rational Irrationality, John Cassidy wonders if Mitt Romeny’s offshore accounts will renew interest in progressive taxation.

Behind the theatrics, two important and opposing principles are at stake: the principle that rich people should pay substantially more of their income in taxes, which underpinned American politics for almost a century; and the principle that a politician who endorses a tax increase of any kind is inviting certain defeat, which has dominated politics in Washington for much of the past decade. Obama is endeavoring to give new life to the first principle and overturn the second. If he succeeds, there will be a great irony—Romney and his byzantine personal finances will have played a significant role in saving the progressive-tax system.
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The Obama campaign isn’t just trying to change the subject from jobs—although that is certainly part of it. It is rolling out a political strategy designed to make a debate about taxes that is potentially hazardous to Democrats into a much more favorable debate about just how rich and out-of-touch Mitt Romney is. (If your answers are “very” and “totally,” award yourself another gold star courtesy of Axelrod.) It’s a clever enough strategy, but one that is not without risks for the White House.