Skeletons or cobwebs?

I'm definitely not one who claims deep or comprehensive political knowledge, but I do have a brain. So, lemme get this straight--based on today's news and the comments people are making, our nation would apparently prefer a poor candidate who doesn't know how to handle money to be a key figure in handling the national budget? Everybody seems to be so up in arms over Mitt Romney's wealth and his tax disclosures. Firstly, Romney paid the taxes required of him by the government. That's a good thing, right? He didn't set the tax rate on his income, contrary to what people's reactions seem to imply. Second, people seem to be upset about his charitable contributions to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Getting a deduction as a result of paying tithing is not the same as doing it in order to GET the deduction. Correlation is not causation. But people just can't possibly believe the best of someone when there's another option open to them. In a country where religion is becoming more and more taboo, so many don't seem to be capable of understanding faith-based actions like tithe-paying.
So the apparent favorite is not the business-savvy, clean-cut, principled, well-to-do Mitt Romney

but rather the hypocritical, unfaithful, explosive Newt Gingrich?

I must be missing something here. It's incredibly sad to me how mistrusting people are of Mitt Romney--like they just can't believe that somebody could be as strait-laced and genuine as Mitt comes off to be. And if they believe it, they don't like it. "He's too cold," they say. Our society is much too accustomed to skeletons in the closet to believe it when they see a closet free of skeletons. So they point out the crooked shelves or the cobwebs. And somehow, for more and more Americans, Newt's numerous skeletons pale in comparison to Mitt's cobwebs. Mitt Romney has been criticized for flip-flopping. Apparently it's better to remain in one stance, oblivious to the other side of the argument, in ignorance, than to learn, think, and change. I'm not in favor of a candidate who's constantly back and forth, but it's natural for people to progress in their thinking. More obviously and importantly still, I think, is this: Mitt Romney was governor of a state. Does it occur to anyone else that someone's ideas of what is appropriate on the state level might differ from what they believe to be right on the federal level? Isn't that the whole reason we have different levels of government? I dunno, maybe we need another 4 years of Obama (cuz let's be honest, Newt ain't gonna win that one!) as a metaphorical slap in the face for America.