Almost immediately after he chose Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney promised a more substantive campaign focused on serious issues. This was the emphasis when he and Ryan talked to Bob Schieffer on 60 Minutes last night — “This is a man who’s also very analytical.” — and it’s what he emphasized on the trail this weekend. On Twitter, Romney senior advisor Eric Fehrnstrom tweeted an apparently crowd-pleasing line from the Republican nominee—“Mr President take your campaign out of the gutter and let’s talk about issues.”

Given this, it’s ironic that Romney would begin this week — essentially, the second phase of his campaign — with another dishonest attack on President Obama’s welfare policies.