Obama's Ohio co-chair slams Romney's offshore bank accounts during presidential introduction

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who is co-chair of the president's Ohio reelection campaign, not only slams Mitt Romney over his offshore bank accounts, but he does it while introducing President Obama:

'Think about it, think of this, a man who wants to be the president of the United States took his great wealth, and instead of investing that great wealth in America, the country he hopes to lead, he somehow chose to find the tax haven, Switzerland, where he opened up a bank account,' Strickland said. 'He invested in the Cayman islands, has a corporation in Bermuda, and he took money from shadowy south American investors when he started Bain Capital and now my friends, he conveniently has decided that he will not release his income tax returns. Doesn't it make you wonder what Mitt Romney is trying to hide from the American people?'

It's notable that Strickland made this attack while standing at the same podium as Obama, not just because the campaign approves of Strickland's message (earlier today the campaign released a hilarious video asking people if they have offshore bank accounts and last night David Axelrod went on a Twitter tear on the topic), but also because Romneyland basically hasn't responded despite the high-profile nature of the attack.

Sure, they're offering wimpy statements to reporters who ask, but there's no serious pushback or hard-hitting rebuttal anywhere to be found. The best case you can make for Romney is that his staff is incompetent, but it would take an amazing level of incompetence to let these attacks continue to pile up if there were an easy rebuttal.

As the saying goes, if Mitt Romney had nothing to hide, then he wouldn't be hiding anything. But there's a reason he refuses to release tax returns from before the year 2010, and the one thing we can be absolutely sure of is that the explanation for that refusal is contained within the returns themselves. This isn't a matter of principle.