CLEVELAND — According to sources close to the Republican nominee, the Romney campaign is going on a fact-free diet until Election Day.

“We’d been trying a low-fact approach lately, but we were still feeling really sluggish in the polls,” said Romney. “Just low energy, you know?”

But if the Romney campaign was going to be at its best, it had to cut out all facts cold-turkey. Sources say Romney hasn’t consumed a fact in weeks, as evidenced by his fib-ridden debate performance last Tuesday. Fact-checkers found that the former Massachusetts governor told 31 untruths in 41 minutes, breaking the record for lies-per-minute previously held by one Governor Mitt Romney.

“It’s a high-rhetoric, low-substance approach we’re taking now,” explained Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades. “And you can’t argue with the results. Just look at these before and after shots,” Rhoades said, holding up two sets of poll numbers.

But going fact-free is not as easy as it might sound. The temptation to say something true or even marginally truthful is everywhere on the campaign trail. And no one in the campaign is struggling to stay vague and dodgy as hard as policy-junkie Paul Ryan.

“I want to give details on our tax proposal,” said Ryan in a phone interview. “It’s not like this plan is just some political McGuffin being kept secret to buy time until a real solution can be drafted. It’s real and detailed. But it’s almost swing-vote season and I don’t want to get those cottage-cheesy fact-deposits around my party line.”

Romney too says he eagerly awaits the day when he can finally reconnect with reality. “It takes will-power,” confessed Romney. “Sometimes I just want to sit down and gorge on an Ezra Klein article or a report from the Congressional Budget Office. But I just have to remind myself the goal is to be president, not informed on the issues.”