Back in the good old pre-Internet days, politicians figured they could get away with pretty much anything. They’d repeat the same old well-debunked lies and constantly shape shift to suit a particular audience, but it was hard for voters to catch them in the act. There was no easy, reliable way for someone in Rock Island, IL, to know what a candidate said the day before in Spokane, WA, or the day before that in Miami.

Now that information flows at warp speed and in unlimited quantities, and it’s possible to triangulate remarks and hold candidates to account, the Romney campaign, at least, still figures it can get away with pretty much anything.

In the final days before the election, the Romney campaign is running a radio ad that, as Andrew Sullivan put it, triples down on the lie that the auto bailout did nothing but create more jobs in China. Mr. Romney already tried that attack in a television ad that was immediately and widely panned but the Republican nominee is showing real fortitude when it comes to ignoring the truth.



Mr. Romney is also running an ad that repeats his absolutely false claim that Mr. Obama “gutted the work requirements” in the welfare laws passed under President Bill Clinton.

And in Pennsylvania, the Republican has an ad out declaring “I like coal,” which blasts the president as a coal hater.

But the campaign’s cunning plan to fool as many of the people as possible all of the time isn’t limited to ads. Off the air, Mr. Romney’s surrogates are hard at work confusing anyone who’d like to know the candidate’s positions.

On Monday, former Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota told a Jewish group in Beechwood, Ohio, that Mr. Romney would not seek to reverse Roe v Wade. I guess Mr. Coleman assumed that none of the people in the audience, or anyone else with access to a computer and the Internet, would remember that Mr. Romney has said explicitly that he would pick judges who would overturn Roe.

It’s obvious that Mr. Romney is against abortion. He says he backs exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is threatened. But he has also supported “personhood” amendments that would not only ban all forms of abortion, but some means of birth control. And Mr. Romney has said repeatedly that he intends to get rid of federal funds that support Planned Parenthood.

He and other politicians who lie are betting that voters won’t punish them for it. We’ll see if that theory pans out on Tuesday.