Here in the waning days of the campaign, Mitt Romney has a message for the press: Talk to the hand.
"For those keeping score at home, today marks three weeks since Mitt Romney last took a question from a reporter," Garrett Haake of NBC News tweeted Wednesday.
Romney's silence flared as an issue a day earlier when, at a campaign-rally-turned-Sandy-relief-event, he refused to answer reporters' questions about his stance on FEMA. At a Republican primary debate, he'd appeared to suggest scrapping the federal agency. (His campaign released a statement Wednesday, almost two days after Sandy struck, saying he'd keep FEMA after all.)
But that's hardly the only issue that Mitt has stayed mum on lately. As Ed Schultz noted Wednesday night, Romney has refused to give specifics on his budget and tax plan; declined to say where he stands on nuclear talks with Iran; avoided commenting on Indiana GOP Senate hopeful Richard Murdoch's controversial rape remarks; and dodged taking a stance on the Lilly Ledbetter Act helping women fight pay discrimination. Romney even has refused to go on Nickelodeon to talk to schoolkids.
"It comes down to who do you trust," Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who chairs the DNC, told Ed.
Romney has "either been blatantly dishonest," she said, "or refused to answer where he is. And President Obama has consistently been there."