Breaking! Most Of This Year’s Campaign Claims Are ‘Barely True’

by Glynnis MacNicol | 10:19 am, October 28th, 2010

» 10 comments

This will no doubt come as a total shock to anyone who’s been paying attention to this year’s crop of (frequently bizarre) campaign ads. Politifact — the non-partisan fact-checking group Jake Tapper charged with reviewing his This Week panels earlier this year — has reviewed candidates claims this year and concluded they are “barely true.”

After rating hundreds of claims in the 2010 election — from TV ads, debates, interviews and mailings — we’re giving an overall Truth-O-Meter rating to the campaign.

We rate it Barely True.

In a majority of claims checked this fall by PolitiFact and our eight state partners, we found a grain of truth, but it was exaggerated, twisted or distorted. (We define Barely True as a statement containing some element of truth, but it “ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.”)

Indeed. So who were the worst offenders.

Republican Christine O’Donnell claimed that Chris Coons, her Democratic opponent for Delaware’s U.S. Senate seat, “thought a 911 call should be taxed.” But we found that was a big stretch because landline telephones had long been taxed to support 911 service. What Coons did was extend the tax to cell phones because of a sharp increase in their use for 911 calls.

Barbara Boxer also got called out for saying Carly Fiorina‘s “plan would mean slashing Social Security and Medicare.” Perhaps the saddest thing about these results is how unsurprising they are. It seems the only requirement for a good campaign ad these days is whether or not it goes viral, not whether or not it is true. Full results here.

Barbara Boxer, Christine O'Donnell, Jake Tapper, Midterms 2010, Politifact

Harry Flashman

WOW!!!!

Right on the cutting edge! Who would have guessed that out of the six “barely true” cases illustrated by bullet points FIVE OF THE SIX would be Republicans!

There’s some breaking news for ya. freat research, guys. Democrats don’t lie (except for Barbara Boxer but we knew that). Republicans do.

Holy tap dancin’ Allah, can you people be any more biased?
The_Reasonable_Lib

everybody knows politifact is biased, the right-wingers told me so.
More Liberty

This proves my point about the majority of government. It’s corrupt and full of crooks – regardless of party. This translates to a corrupt system.
http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Mangan/100000213524770 David Mangan

Boxer is a catch-all for everything bad about Democrats. How about Alex Sink cheating during her debate with the FL Gov opponent Scott? Even NBC Evening News carried that, but Mediaite continues to carry the flag for the BIG LOSERS on Nov. 2nd.
Orion Antares

They need to make it unconstitutional for people to donate money toward candidate races THEY CAN’T VOTE IN. Not a silver bullet but certainly would be a good start for weeding out some of the corrupting influences.
timcajun

I really don’t blame O’Donnell as much for all of her lies, because I don’t think she knows enough about what goes on around her, or taxs, or the function of the office! She just doesn’t have any work background of any kind. On the other hand the tea party should have never picked such a loser, to be proud of!
chatmandu002

I love that all the money that is being spent on all the campaign ads. It’s keeping so many people employed. But wait until after the election is over, the unemployment rate will go up. All the ad people will be out of work along with a much of democrats… LMAO
http://www.facebook.com/people/Blair-Maury/1027829552 Blair Maury

More Liberty said:
This proves my point about the majority of government. It’s corrupt and full of crooks – regardless of party. This translates to a corrupt system.

Not trying to be confrontational here: Just think that it would just as be corrupt if it were 50/50 or if the Republicans had both Houses and the Presidency just like it is now with the Democrats controlling all 3.
Z_man723

“Republican Christine O’Donnell claimed that Chris Coons, her Democratic opponent for Delaware’s U.S. Senate seat, “thought a 911 call should be taxed.” But we found that was a big stretch because landline telephones had long been taxed to support 911 service. What Coons did was extend the tax to cell phones because of a sharp increase in their use for 911 calls.”

So by “extending the tax to cell phones” does not make it a tax? Yea that sounds about right. If you read it from the site they also say what people who are watching it imply and then explain it with 2 paragraphs… I guess next election cycle we’ll have campaign commercials on DVDs so they can explain every single thing so Politifact will be happy.
Thelonious Funk

Did Politifact review the “I’m not a Witch’ commercial? I’m curious whether or not that’s true.