Romney, meanwhile, has been saying things that are just flatly untrue, specifically and generally—whether it’s taking quotations (like Obama’s “you didn’t build that”) grotesquely out of context or making claims about policy (like suggesting Obama got rid of work requirements in welfare) that independent fact-checkers found to be clearly false. Romney has blamed Obama for running high deficits in the present, even though they are more the result of Bush-era policies, and suggested the auto industry rescue encouraged Chrysler and GM to outsource jobs to China, even though both companies are creating jobs here and the rescue itself probably saved a million American jobs. Romney has said he has a plan to protect people with pre-existing medical conditions, even though repeal of the Affordable Care Act would eliminate the guarantee of comprehensive benefits that will begin in 2014, and he has demonized Obama for taking $716 billion from Medicare, even though Ryan's own budget—which Romney praised and said he would sign—did the same. Romney has told a newspaper that "no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda," even though he'd said previously he would sign Republican bills restricting abortion rights and has pledged, repeatedly, to appoint conservative judges and justices who would, among other things, support overruling Roe v. Wade.

The dishonesty is of a piece with his cavalier attitude towards providing actual policy proposals that outside analysts can evaluate. This is the fourth presidential campaign I’ve covered as a regular policy reporter and I can’t recall a major candidate, from either party, who provided less information or answered fewer questions than Romney has. John McCain’s 2008 campaign didn’t have a reputation for policy heft. But when McCain put out his health care proposal, it was an actual plan with real numbers. And he dispatched his advisers to talk about it. Liberals like me didin't love the plan itself, but at least we had a common frame of reference for debating it. Romney, by contrast, refuses to answer questions and, with only a few exceptions, has not even made advisers available for serious on-the-record interviews. Would Romney’s plan provide assistance for everybody, or just those who pay taxes? How much would it cost? These are basic, fundamental questions and nobody from the Romney campaign has answered them. (Those of us writing about it have been left to read between the lines of carefully worded campaign blog posts and columns by well-connected conservative writers.)

It’s not an isolated example. Here we are, a day left in the campaign, and Romney still hasn’t told us how he’d offset the cost of his massive tax cut—except to say he’d do it through deductions without raising taxes on the middle class, an approach that independent analysts have said is mathematically impossible. Romney still hasn't provided details on his "five-point plan" to boost the economy, even though his central claim as a candidate is that he'd do more to improve growth. Romney still hasn’t told us which programs he’d cut in order to cap non-defense federal spending at 16 percent, even though independent analysts have suggested doing so would require draconian cuts few Americans would find acceptable. Even in the spotlight of a nationally televised debate, when confronted with these questions, Romney wouldn't answer.

Romney’s distortions and evasions have been so frequent, and so central to his campaign, that the blogger Steve Benen created a weekly feature on them called “Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity.” Last week, in its 41st edition, included 33 separate items. And it’s not just liberal writers who have noticed. Paul Ryan’s infamous convention speech was something of a watershed moment: Confronted with multiple and obvious distortions, the media reacted by reporting that Ryan was not telling the truth.