Here are two pieces of friendly advice for Mitt Romney. If you really are going to run for President yet again, you better follow the examples of Hillary Clinton and your own father by releasing a lot more than two years of tax returns. And if you want to have any hope of shedding that indelible image of being an out-of-touch, gilded-class opportunist, for the love of God figure out where you really live and vote. After all, your confusion about your state of residence nearly derailed your 2002 run for Governor of Massachusetts and made a mockery of your 2012 claim to have left Bain Capital in 1999.
In 2009, Mitt and wife Ann Romney sold two of their four multi-million dollar homes in a move his top campaign aide Eric Fehrnstrom described as "down-sizing and simplifying." In 2010 and 2012, Mitt voted in Belmont, Massachusetts, where he lived in a town house after previously using his son Tagg's basement as his home address on his voter registration form. But as the Salt Lake Tribune reported last month, the Romneys have apparently decided to upsize once again and call Utah home, building a 5,900 square foot home in Holladay in addition to the $8.9 million mansion they purchased in Deer Valley last year. Last week, the Trib explained, his game of musical mansions confused Romney himself:

It turns out Romney, who is moving to Utah as a full-time resident, strolled into a driver license office in late August to obtain his Utah license and filled out paperwork to register to vote at his under-construction home in Holladay, a suburb of Salt Lake City. But, apparently because of outdated information in the agency's database, the pre-printed form listed Romney's former Park City address on Rising Star Lane and with no party affiliation. Romney signed it.
The move flummoxed state elections officials and Romney aides, when The Salt Lake Tribune inquired why the two-time presidential candidate was registering as an unaffiliated voter with his listed residence at a home he sold five years ago. As they explained it, some star-struck clerks and Romney's inattentiveness may have combined to cause the problem.

Now, providing false information on a voter registration form is a misdemeanor offense in Utah. But in 2002, documents showing Park City, Utah as his primary residence nearly ended Mitt Romney's run for Massachusetts Governor before it began.
That issue resurfaced during the 2012 presidential campaign because it undermined Team Romney's pretense that their man left Bain Capital in 1999 and so was not involved in or benefitting from deals that left thousands jobless and while Mitt millions. But largely overlooked in the discussion of his departure date as Bain Capital CEO is why Mitt Romney used to claim he was only on leave between 1999 and 2002. If Romney really permanently left Bain in 1999 to run the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, he might have been ineligible to run for Governor of Massachusetts.
As the Boston Globe noted in its story, "financial disclosure documents Romney filed in Massachusetts show that he was paid as a Bain Capital executive while he directed the Olympics." But it is the last sentence in the article which may be the most important:

In Romney's 2002 race for governor, he testified before the state Ballot Law Commission that his separation from Bain in 1999 had been a "leave of absence" and not a final departure.

And why was Mitt Romney testifying before the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission? Because, it turns out, for three years he paid property taxes to Utah while claiming his $3.8 million Park City mansion was his "primary residence." And unless he could convince the Commission that was a mistake and that his tony Belmont estate was still home, Bain Capital CEO Romney would never have become Governor Romney.
As the AP reported in June 2002:

Mitt Romney the former Salt Lake City Olympics chief now running for Massachusetts governor paid property taxes on a Utah home as his "primary residence" between 1999 and 2001 and received a $54,600 tax discount as a result.
The distinction which Utah officials said was made in error fueled the debate about whether Romney meets Massachusetts' residential requirements to be governor. The state Constitution requires a candidate to live in Massachusetts for seven years prior to election.

And as the Boston Globe explained that same month:

At the center of the case were Massachusetts tax returns Romney filed while in Utah. Romney filed in 1999 as a part-year Massachusetts resident and in 2000 as a nonresident.
Romney changed those returns to Massachusetts resident in April, after deciding to run for governor, saying his longtime tax advisers at Pricewaterhouse Coopers had made a mistake.

For his part, Romney answered the question "Where have I been the last three years?" by claiming "It was serving the people of our country in a responsibility I was given." Besides, the AP reported, "the [Utah] home was in his wife Ann's name and she paid the tax bills." On June 25, 2002, the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission consisting of three Republicans, one Democrat and one independent rejected a Democratic challenge to Romney's eligibility and concluded that Romney "was credible in all respects regarding the fact that (he) intended Massachusetts to be his domicile from 1971 to the present."
Romney's credibility may have been helped by his claims that between 1999 and 2001 he was on "a leave of absence" from Boston-based Bain Capital. That would square with reporting from David Corn of Mother Jones, who explained last week that:

In 1999, Bain and Romney both described his departure from Bain not as a resignation and far from absolute. The Boston Herald on February 12, 1999 reported, "Romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with Bain, providing input on investment and key personnel decisions." And a Bain press release issued on July 19, 1999, noted that Romney was "currently on a part-time leave of absence"--and quoted Romney speaking for Bain Capital.

But what was helpful to Mitt Romney in 2002 is major headache now. Because at a minimum that would mean the Romney campaign was misleading the American people when it denied that Mitt profited when Bain Capital invested in companies that shipped jobs overseas, extracted massive dividends and fees from firms that later failed and even harvested cash from human fetuses and other medical waste. All of that, Team Romney claims, happened "after Mitt left Bain."
But if that was true (and it wasn't), then Mitt Romney should have never have become Governor of Massachusetts. Mercifully, he didn't become the President of the United States. And whether or not Romney can honestly tell the American people where he lived when, God willing he never will.