Back in '02, when first running for governor, Rendell refused to make his returns public until a few days before the election.

Clinton's camp repeatedly says she's releasing hers "on or about" April 15, which would be, well, a few days before the election.

Maybe Rendell said, "Hey, Hill, I got away with it."

His returns showed a couple of eyebrow-raising items that over a couple of weeks exposure might not have played so well with voters - especially those whose finances are closer to six-packs than to six figures.

He grabbed a cool quarter-mill (as in $250,000) from the Ballard Spahr law firm for, as he himself said, doing virtually nothing.

He hit another roughly $300,000 in a stock deal thanks to a Pittsburgh millionaire pal and major Democratic donor, Stephen Frobouck.

And he picked up $25,000 for serving on the board of a Frobouck firm, Com-Net, which was sold to a Tyco subsidiary, thereby creating the Rendell windfall.

(Ironically, Frobouck's bucks this cycle were directed to Democratic candidate Bill Richardson, who now backs Barack Obama.)

Does anyone think seven or eight years of Clinton finances, especially Bill's, won't make for interesting reading?

I mean why else delay so long?

I asked Sen. Clinton during her meeting this week with the Daily News editorial board. She said she is going to release the returns, and quickly noted that Obama released only his 2006 returns.

(Yesterday, his campaign released complete returns, with all schedules, from 2000 to 2006, put them on his campaign Web site, said they'll release his '08 returns soon and again called on Clinton to release hers.)

She said that pulling all the tax stuff together is complicated and takes time.

I noted that she and her husband have been out of the White House a while and that lots of folks might think eight years is plenty of time.

She said, yeah, well, "senators don't have to release tax returns."

(They do file annual financial disclosure. Her latest says her 'spouse' collected $10.2 million for 57 speeches in 2006, one a $450,000 gig in London.)

When I press about the release and the April 22 election date, she says that the returns will be released "as soon as they're ready."

She says you all (meaning us all) want to look at "every decimal point" and so there will be lots of questions and people have to have answers ready for the many questions to come.

I think, "No doubt."

I ask national pollster Neil Newhouse, of Public Opinion Strategies, about tax returns influencing late-deciding voters.

In an e-mail, he says that tax returns probably aren't a big issue, but 21 percent of Texas and Ohio Democrats didn't make up their minds until within three days of their primaries, so "potential" exists for late-deciders to impact the PA results.

He adds: "Hillary needs a BIG win in Pennsylvania. Anything she does that could temper her margins in the state could be risky."

I don't pretend that Rendell would have lost had his returns been out there for a month or so (he won that race by 9 percentage points).

I don't suggest Hillary can lose based on whatever's in her returns (her average lead is 16 points). And there are more important issues.

But come on. It is routine and expected that candidates for major office make their lives and finances publicly see-through.

As Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said yesterday, "Send someone down to Kinko's, photocopy tax returns and put them on her Web site."

Or, pull an Eddie. He got away with it. *

Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com.

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