To the Editor:



The main issue in this election is not the character of either Gov. Mitt Romney or President Barack Obama. It's the character of the American voter.



Today, one candidate avoids making public years of tax returns, accounts and investments in Switzerland, the Grand Cayman Islands, Bermuda, etc. This deliberate, ongoing refusal is a callous, arrogant expression of the candidate's contempt for the American voter.



Presumptively in a democracy, the voter is not simply an ignorant, easily manipulated puppet dancing to any tune a candidate wishes. If American voters continue to accept the degradation embodied in that candidate's refusal to reveal highly significant information, we contribute to our own degradation. We will have allowed one man, not an army of men but only one man, to define us for all time as the most timid of the timid. How very sad.



We are millions, demanding information essential to an intelligent vote. We are opposed by a single person. Our justifiable will should prevail, unless we have become a nation of mice.



Future historians will mark this matter as one that clearly defined our democracy. We are either a timid shell of our former selves, or we are a people who have reclaimed our principles and courage.



Richard Castellane

Munnsville



