Learning some election year PR lessons

It never ceases to amaze me how bad some people are at public relations. And a lot of them seem to work in the arena of politics.

The story last week involving Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), was the latest example of how not to deal with a story.

Most people outside of journalism don't understand the way the mind of a reporter works - when you tell me that you won't give me the answer to a simple question (what is the Congressman being treated for?) - that only makes me want to move more heaven and earth to find out what you are hiding.

If Jackson's people had said in mid-June that he was receiving medical treatment for some kind of issue, it would have never gained so much attention as it did over the last week.

But they didn't do that, and so the media drumbeat finally forced the release of some information by Jackson's office.

From my experience in the news media, it just always seems like the faster you get some information out there, the faster the story might go away.

Especially if there isn't any story.

For example, let's look at the Mitt Romney-tax returns story.

For the second time this year, we are watching the campaign hierarchy for Mitt Romney struggle with calls for him to release his tax returns.

Earlier this year, Romney gave weak answers in GOP debates over why he wouldn't release his taxes, and finally in late January, he had to issue two years of tax information.

Do you remember what was in those tax returns? Probably not. That's usually what happens with these kinds of stories.

The biggest piece of information that came out of Romney's tax return release earlier this year was his effective tax rate of 13.9% in 2010 and 15.4% in 2011.

Other than that, there wasn't anything of note.

So, as you look at Democratic calls for Romney to release more tax returns - and Romney's refusal to do that - is there anything there? Or maybe the better PR question is, should this even be happening to him right now?

Romney has had months - actually, several years - to make those tax returns public.

Instead, he's waited and waited and waited, shrugging off calls to release them, and now finds himself under strong attack from Democrats and the Obama campaign over the Bain Capital matter, as they use all kind of innuendo on what Romney might be hiding.

Does he have something to hide in those tax returns related to Bain? If not - then why not just dump all those documents out there? That was even the message from some Republicans over the weekend.