What are talking about? Romney choosing not to cauterize a bleeding wound, means, logically, that the cure is worse than the wound. When the Obama camp started pounding Romney on his tax returns, there was measurable movement in the polls. Why do you think the Romney camp jumped the gun with the Ryan VP announcement? They needed to change the narrative from the tax returns. And your analogy is false-- the clear parallel is Obama releasing the same tax records, which he's done. Has Romney released his grades? Is such a release subject to 30+ years of candidate custom? (No.)
If the Pubs could move the needle with Obama's grades, I'd tell Obama the same thing. Release them, unless you absolutely can't (while demanding Romney's grades in return, of course). But so far, the tax return attack has been relevant (because it's inexplicable for Romney to buck precedent --one followed by his own father, and regarding records he willingly gave McCain last election -- unless he's hiding something) and the other issue hasn't (because grades releases aren't customary, and Romney hasn't done it either).
Mr. Beltway? What?
And yeah, I'm pretty moderate. I plan to vote for three GOP candidates in November, including a governor. But the national GOP has totally lost focus on where moderate lies.