Senior RNC officials are concerned that if Republican nominees Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan continue at their present rate, they may entirely run out of lies well before the election season reaches its peak.

"Don't get me wrong," said one senior party member, "We're always pleased to see our candidates start strong right out of the gate. But there's concern that they may be overdoing it."

The problem is that a quality falsehood isn't something that you can just dream up on the spur of the moment. Both major parties have their own research labs dedicated to creating and fine-tuning untruths for the use of their candidates. The RNC's lab, thanks to generous donations from the Koch Brothers, is widely recognized as one of the best-funded and most creative in the world, with facilities that are described as "high-tech" and "world-class". But RNC insiders fear that the Romney campaign's over-dependence on falsifications may be putting the lab under intolerable strain.

"Frankly, the guys in the lab are hurting," said our source. "Obviously, everyone pulls double shifts around convention time. But I've never seen anything like this before. They're just exhausted trying to keep up. Mitt sent over some specialists from Bain Capital to help out and we just about squeaked through, but it was a damn close thing."

Adding to the concern are reports that other party members may be dipping into stocks reserved for senior leadership. "Look at that Todd Akin rape thing. No one knows where he got that from, and he's not talking. But we've got this safe in the lab that we call 'Deep Crazy', full of real high-class bullshit, real 'I can't believe he just said that' stuff. It's strictly emergency only, but some people are saying that Todd raided it and there's no knowing what else he might have taken. And that's caused a lot of ill-feeling within the party because Michelle [Bachmann] has always thought of that as her private store."

The Republicans, of course, don't have a monopoly on political lies. "Barrack Obama, he's more a shade-the-truth kind of guy," said another RNC member. "Comes from his legal training, I guess. But that's not to say that he doesn't trot out a blatant falsehood from time to time or give an entire speech with his fingers crossed behind his back. Joe Biden? That's a tougher call. Frankly, sometimes I think even he doesn't know what he's saying."

The real concern is that if the Republican nominees continue in the same way, the Democrats may feel obliged to match them lie for lie, leading to an escalating spiral of fabrication. "Paul Ryan will come out and say that Obama's education plans will force preschoolers to have sex with goats. Then the Democrats will hit back and say that Mitt Romney's hair is an alien life form that gets out at night and sucks the blood of senior citizens. OK, that one's actually true, but you get the idea."

Some observers fear that at present rates of consumption, the country's stores of untruths might be exhausted not just locally but nationally. "What happens if we reach October and all the good lies have already been used?" asked one commentator. "The candidates might be reduced to telling the truth and, trust me, no one wants that."