If by understand the reason for the latter, you mean, they'll assume that Romney did some skullduggery on his taxes, might be a felon, etc. The bizarre reluctance to release one's tax returns when there can't POSSIBLY be any reason not to UNLESS there's something awful in there is indefensible. This is why Romney got SCARRED AND CHARRED in the South Carolina primary. Just see how he answered the tax return question in the debate when he got booed and then got trounced by Newt in the primary. Romney wants to be President where he'll never have privacy again, so why does he insist on being so private about the tax returns?
That is a FAR more serious problem than a simply verbal gaffe of a word or two that every politician makes and become more or less forgotten after a few weeks as people look to more serious issues. Romney's not releasing the tax returns creates a "fear of the unknown" factor which has a life of its own.
Your argument implies all wealthy folks should be disqualified from running on the Republican ticket.Romney is not a conservative but would you be criticizing him for not releasing his tax returns if he were a conservative rich guy.What Romney has done that is “awful and bizarre” is that he is wealthy with most of his income generated by capital gains on his investments thus taxable at the 15% capital gains rate. He has said he never paid less than 13% in tax.He has provided 2 years of tax returns and Obama wants 12 for his fishing expedition and to reinforce his campaign optic that Romney is a 1 percenter who will be the sole beneficiary of his proposed tax policies.Romney will not be losing this on the basis of his tax returns. But Akin will be losing it on the basis of his fatal foot in mouth disease.Akin was not in gaffe mode when he did state that he understands that forcibly women rarely get pregnant because he heard some doctors have told him the biological system shuts down.There is no scientific evidence of that other than his hearsay.
You can take heart, though. Someone does agree with you that it was a “simple gaffe”.McCaskill was on making a statement that he should stay in and not let the party bosses undemocratically choose another candidate over a simple mistake.