DeMint says Romney waffling on taxes 'hurt him' in SC

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a Mitt Romney supporter in 2008 who stayed neutral in this year's pivotal GOP primary, said that the former governor's equivocation on releasing his taxes hurt his effort in the Palmetto state.

“What hurt him was he wasn’t definitive in his answer,” DeMint said during an interview on CNN's "State of the Union". “He should have said immediately, ‘I’m going to do it in April, or I’m not going to do it,’ but the fact that he wasn't clear is, I think, what hurt him."

Romney said Sunday that he would release his 2010 returns on Tuesday and acknowledged during an interview on "Fox News Sunday" that he "made a mistake in holding off as long as we did."

"Given all the attention that's been focused on tax returns, given the distraction that I think they became in these last couple of weeks," Romney explained.

"People can take a good look at them, we'll put them on the website, and you can go through the pages," he said.

DeMint said that the demand for the returns — a theme South Carolina winner Newt Gingrich has been hammering on the debate trail — might end up being a tactical mistake for Republicans. Still, he acknowledged, Romney looked bad when wavering about their release during the GOP debates.

"I frankly don't care about his tax returns. I think stigmatizing his success is a real mistake for Republicans," DeMint said. "But he just needed to be definitive about what he was going to do.”

Romney said he would also release estimated returns for 2011, but has not said whether he would provide prior years.

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