Romney's father released 12 years of tax returns

Mitt Romney says he's looking at how previous presidential candidates have handled releasing their tax returns -- and there's one compelling example that hits very close to home.

George Romney, father of the Republican front-runner, released his tax returns for the previous 12 years just before his presidential campaign in 1968.

This newspaper clipping from Nov. 27, 1967, described the elder Romney's tax release as "a move believed to be without precedent in American politics."

Critics of Mitt Romney have cited his father's example in urging the presidential candidate to release his tax returns.

"Every day, it's clearer that the apple has fallen very far from the tree," said Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer. "It's time for Mitt Romney to follow the precedent set by his father, and embraced by a generation of previous candidates, and release his comprehensive federal income tax returns for the past eight years."

George Romney, then governor of Michigan, wound up losing the 1968 Republican nomination to Richard Nixon, though not because of taxes; Romney's campaign foundered largely because of a comment that U.S. generals had given him a "brainwashing" over the course of the Vietnam War.

Mitt Romney -- who said today that he has paid an income tax rate of close to 15% -- said during Monday night's debate he would probably release his tax return after he files it in April, and if he is the nominee.

Romney said:

I think I've heard enough from folks saying, look, let's see your tax records. I have nothing in them that suggests there's any problem, and I'm happy to do so. I sort of feel like we are showing a lot of exposure at this point. And if I become our nominee, and what's happened in history is people have released them in about April of the coming year, and that's probably what I would do.