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By Carter Eskew

Special to The Washington Post

Under the pressure of a presidential campaign, candidates are tempted to sell off little pieces of their soul to save their political fortunes. In the 1992 New Hampshire primary, Bill Clinton lied about Gennifer Flowers. His comeback was built on a falsehood that would haunt him throughout his administration. In the 2000 South Carolina primary, George W. Bush dropped his "uniter" facade and ran a divisive campaign to destroy the surging John McCain, the kind of expediency that would plague him periodically during his two-term presidency.

Now it's Mitt Romney's turn to make deals with the devil. Desperate to avoid a lengthy primary season that could drain him financially and politically, Romney is trying to prove his conservative credentials by saying things about President Barack Obama that he undoubtedly knows are false (Obama would put free enterprise on trial; Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes, with that which is earned by some redistributed to others, etc.). It is part of a frame in which Romney accuses Obama of giving up on America and presents himself as the Great Restorer.

Now cynics will say, a politician lying about his opponent? Shocking! Indeed, many believe that the old joke about lawyers — "How do you know when they are lying? When their lips move." — applies even better to politicians. But a candidate's prevarications tend to catch up with the perpetrator, either down the campaign trail or in office.

Romney stands a good chance of winning the nomination and being president of a country that faces extraordinary challenges and whose mechanisms to fix them are in shambles. The only way to govern such a country is to re-establish trust. And the only way to do that is to be honest, even when it isn't easy. How Romney chooses to win will be as important as whether he wins.

Carter Eskew was the chief strategist for the Gore 2000 presidential campaign.