Romney reportedly picked Ryan over a week ago (Updated)

Stephen Hayes, who has a firm line into Paul Ryan's world and along with William Kristol gave the first word last night that the choice was probably the Wisconsin congressman, tweets that Mitt Romney made his choice on Aug. 1.

Fox News has a different date - Aug. 3 - but the general point is the same. Both reports have Romney picking Ryan a week before the Ryan boomlet began anew in conservative media, with the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal editorial page calling for him to be picked.

It could be a parallel track that was going on, or it could be that the campaign indicated privately that Ryan would be the pick, and this paved the way.

UPDATE: A source confirmed to me that Romney made the choice ten days ago, and also said "no one knew" other than the campaign.