THE TAMING-CONGRESS CASE Those swing voters, polls suggest, want pretty much what Obama wants: short-term stimulus (middle-class tax relief, infrastructure investments, money to keep teachers and cops on the job) and long-term discipline (including some new tax revenue). But Obama has had little success budging the mulish intransigents on Capitol Hill.

Jonathan Chait, no apologist for the Republicans, argued recently that the best way to break the impasse might be to elect Romney. If Romney went to Capitol Hill with some version of the grand bargain, Chait wrote, most Republicans “would see the need to rescue the economy under a fellow Republican’s presidency, and sheer political expediency would trump all.” Romney constantly points that as governor he worked across party lines to balance the budget. (He does not point out that he did it in part by raising taxes and fees.)

The Democrats will retort that the Republican Party is hostage to its dogmatically antigovernment Tea Party minority, and Romney is, too. Remember that chillingly defining moment when the Republican candidates were asked if they would reject a deal that included $10 of spending cuts for just $1 in tax hikes? Romney’s hand was raised with the rest of them. Swing voters would have taken the 10-to-1 deal in a heartbeat.

So Democrats will paint Romney as a rubber stamp for Congressional Republicans who want to coddle the rich, fix the economy on the backs of the middle class and seniors, and let Wall Street and the polluters write their own rules. Mindful of the polls showing the popularity of that Congress at about 9 percent, they will try to make Romney and Eric Cantor seem like running mates.