Tchotchkes: Twit Me!

A big Thank You to Mary Ann "Night Owl" Bittle for twitting a tiny URL link to my blog's Politi-Score consolidated report on April 24.

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: RyanCare--Pay or Die!

There was quite a “liberal” uproar over this PolitiFact (PF) ruling on the claim made by a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee TV ad on Paul Ryan’s proposed “Path to Prosperity” to change Medicare from a defined benefit to defined contribution plan, as well as raise the eligibility age from 65 to 67. And of course, leave it as is for the most important Republican voting bloc, the “screw-everybody-but-me” baby boomers.

Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly (which appears to be a sort of counter to the conservative Washington Examiner) headlines his criticism "When PolitiFact Becomes PolitiFalse."

Josh Marshall at Talking Points memo: “Knowledge Counts”-- “This is why Republicans are spinning this issue so hard and bamboozling folks at places like Politifact.”

“PolitiFact has Pants on Fire in their rating of Democratic Claims about Medicare” says David Dayen of FireDogLake.

Finally, Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo makes a mild claim, “PolitiFact Insists Republicans Don't Want To End Medicare”.

I’ve listed these links first as part and partial to linking from the “Guide to PolitiFact Detractors” page because it adds a lot to the “liberal” PolitiFact critics who think PolitiFact leans right.

Careful reading of what “RyanCare” offers, as noted above, is its re-structuring of the Medicare program from a defined benefit, government as single payer to defined contribution, consumer-driven plan. And once all the baby-boomers die, should this program as defined by Paul Ryan actually come to pass, there would be no Medicare as we know it today. Medicare would simply be an individual subsidy program.

Tchotchkes: Belated Easter Cartoon

Politi-Score: Angie's List Left

Last January I did a post in which I looked at Bryan White's Grading PolitiFact series of criticisms which he believes establishes a "preponderance of anecdotal evidence" of PolitiFact's liberal bias.  The title of my particular post was "Does Lou Lou do More Doo Doo" because, as I noted in the piece, Bryan has never given a "grade" to PolitiFact's writer Louis Jacobson any higher than an F.  Indeed, it appears he looks at more PolitiFact rulings by Jacobson than anyone else, although my count at the time revealed that Louis Jacobson was tied overall with Robert Farley at 23 rulings each, while Angie Drobnic-Holan came in second with 18 rulings reviewed.

Starting this year in my "counts" I decided to include the writer in order to calculate a Politi-Score by PolitiFact writer.  The quarterly results offered a slight surprise:  it may be that Bryan is not looking at the right person.  Lou Lou doesn't do the do do as much as Angie does (if there's to be a suspicion of liberal bias), according to the Politi-Score:

Click to enlarge.

This is roughly 100 rulings: Farley and Holan did one quarter each, and Jacobson did the other half.  The Politi-Scores tell a story, however, with Angie Drobnic-Holan giving Democrats a very high (the highest of all three) Politi-Score of 63 compared to her two PolitiFact National co-workers.

At this point, all this tells me is I need to continue compiling results for the writers to get a larger sampling of rulings, which would give more validation to this result.  If I have the time I may go back and compile them for 2010.  Stay tuned.

Politi-Express Half True Review

On February 21-22, in a “Statement of Principles” as written by Bill Adair, then followed up by PolitiFacts Texas, Florida and Oregon, Half True is defined in identical articles as: (italics added)

“The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.”

But the “About PolitiFact” link describes Half True as:

 "The statement is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context." 

Snopes Truth-O-Meter for "Urban Myths" and other rumors it checks out.

Hat tip (as he would say) to my conservative counterpart for making that catch. I’m guessing Bill Adair decided to throw in that equivocating “partially” to make a better case for how “Half Trues” are judged. Most of the statements speak for themselves, although in a few instances, PolitiFact (PF) probably would have been better off not rating them at all because of the lack of information on which to accurately fact check.  In other words, something in the way of the Snopes rating key  (see above) would have been more useful because it has an “Undetermined” rating (Yellow bullet: "available evidence is too contradictory or insufficient to establish either True or False") as well as “Multiple Truths" (Multiple red/green bullets: "a mixture of truth and falsehood").  Let’s see how Snopes can be applied to these Half True rulings published by PolitiFact in the first quarter of 2011.  There were about 40% fewer number-related Half-True PF rulings to evaluate, so six examples will be presented here.

Barack-orama. This was one of Obama’s on Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 in his State of the Union address:  "We are living with a legacy of deficit-spending that began almost a decade ago."

Writer Angie Drobnic Holan explains the Half-True ruling this way: (italics added)

Now YOU can win every debate with Fallacies

Fallacies are defects in an argument that cause it to be invalid, unsound, or weak. In a deductive argument, the existence of a fallacy means that the argument is not valid - even if the premises are true, the conclusion might still be false. A fallacy does not guarantee it is false; a fallacious argument fails to provide a good reason to believe the conclusion, even if that conclusion is correct.

So, no matter what your adversary says, you can render their argument as weak and ineffective, simply by learning to apply common logical fallacies to anything they say.  In the dialogue below, you can replace "1 plus 1 equals 2" with just about anything.  You just need to look for the fallacy you can attack, regardless of the soundness of the argument.  Here's a master fallacy debater who I'll call Blovius Wacko (BW) doing just that in this satirical Facebook page conversation.

Commenter: 1 plus 1 equals 2.

BW: That’s just an assertion. Do you have a citation?

Commenter: Oh geez, how ‘bout Media Matters for Pete’s sake!

BW: Media Matters is liberally biased, so what it claims means nothing.

Commenter: Look, 1 plus 1 equals 2 because 1 plus 1 equals 2.

BW: You’re begging the question, also known as a tautology.

Commenter: But 1 plus 1 equals 2, it can’t equal anything else.

BW: That’s bifurcation fallacy. You’re presenting a false choice.

Commenter: 1 plus 1 equals 2 by law of math, see Euclid, Aristotle, Fibonacci, the original great mathematicians.
BW: That’s not evidence, just the fallacy of appeal to tradition or authority. You should also look up the genetic fallacy, which applies as well.  So far your argument is very, very weak.

Commenter: If 1 plus 1 equals 2, then 2 plus 2 equals 4.

Red Herring



BW: Fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc…correlation is not causation, plus you’re moving the goalposts from 1 to 2 to 4.

Commenter: Everyone knows that 1 plus 1 equals 2.

BW: That’s the fallacy of argumentum ad populum, just because everyone believes it doesn’t mean it’s true. It’s just another red herring like the appeal to authority.

Commenter: Even your own Newt Gingrich said 1 plus 1 equaled 2.

BW: Just because Newt Gingrich said it doesn’t make it true. By the way, that’s called the tu quoque fallacy.

Commenter: Look, if you have a beer and I have a beer, that’s two beers.

BW: Commenter is drunk with poor logic. This isn’t about beer—now you throw the Straw Man fallacy into it because you're running out of explanations.

Commenter: You know, it’s just stupid not to believe that 1 plus 1 equals 2.

BW: So now you’ve had to resort to ad hominen. Once again I’ve proven the many fallacies of your faulty reasoning.

Commenter: So, what does 1 plus 1 equal, Blovius?

BW: Now you’re shifting the burden. You’re the one who made the assertion. I’m just here to point out your pathetic reasoning and fallacious arguments. Now just wake up and admit to your having failed miserably at your argument. 

Part 2 of When Dummies Forget Why They Have Handlers

Before Trump's punctuation and grammar, there was Sarah and her sentence structure.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Lil White Lies: Silence is NOT Golden

Recently Michele Bachmann made another statement which PolitiFact (PF) ruled as False: “The top 1 percent of income-earners pay about 40 percent of all taxes into the federal government." It generated a lot of commentary at the Facebook page, and a few posted why she was not asked—called or e-mailed-- to clarify her comments. I decided to interject some links to PolitiFact rulings on Bachmann along with this remark: (links embedded instead of displayed)

I think part of the reason Bachmann doesn’t get a break (as opposed to Pelosi) is she does not respond to PolitiFact when they ask her for more detail, or for her sources:

“Bachmann's press office did not return our call...”

“We contacted Bachmann’s office to ask where she got the number, but we didn’t get a response.”

“Analyzing this comment is somewhat tricky, because Bachmann’s time frame is open to interpretation (and her office didn’t return our inquiry seeking an explanation).”

Others took note of my comment for which I got a few “thumbs up” or “likes” as well as this comment from a Julie Baker Morse: (emphasis added)

… for those complaining that Bachmann is treated differently by Politifact: I believe that their rating depends in part upon the perceived intent of those making the statements. Perhaps if Bachmann had not racked up so many untruths, and did not ignore Politifact's requests for clarification, this may have been rated differently. Untruths and fact misrepresentations for most politicians [from all parties] don't happen because THEY are stupid; it's because they believe that Americans are stupid enough to both believe them and re-elect them, no matter what they say and whether or not their statements have been proved false. (4/18/11 ~12:30 p.m.)

Bryan White just had to make an indirect response to me through Morse: (emphasis added)

Tchotchkes: What a Wonderful Republican World?

Lil White Lies: Selective Hyperbole

Special Note April 26: Jon Kyl has apparently decided to leave his "hyperbole" off the congressional record.  The "well over 90 percent" has been "erased".

Hyperbole is exaggeration…For example, to describe  a very  long car trip,  I  might  write, "I'd been driving for about a hundred years when I finally came to a fork in the road." This is dramatically more descriptive than "I'd been driving for a very long time when I finally came to a fork in the road." Since the reader knows it's impossible for the writer to drive for a hundred years, it becomes clear that hyperbole is being used. This particular hyperbole is also a good example of comic irony.

Wikipedia: Hyperbole… is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally…Hyperboles are exaggerations to create emphasis or effect. As a literary device, hyperbole is often used in poetry, and is frequently encountered in casual speech. An example of hyperbole is: "The bag weighed a ton."… Hyperbole helps to make the point that the bag was very heavy, although it is not probable that it would actually weigh a ton.

According to dictionary.com, hyperbole is defined as “an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as 'to wait an eternity' "…as further confirmed by the definitions above.

Recently PolitiFact (PF) ruled “False” on a statement by Republican Senator Jon Kyl that “Abortion services are ‘well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.' " His office’s response to CNN with regard to the remark that it was “not intended to be a factual statement” was greatly mocked (by Stephen Colbert et al). My conservative counterpart was quick to claim that the explanation was “the definition of hyperbole” along with “… to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, an organization that receives millions in taxpayer dollars, does subsidize abortions.” It seems to me that was in reality a great way to cover up something meant to mislead, or what might be called “backpedaling.”

So the questions for Kyl’s “not intended to be factual” statement become: Can we expect that those watching Kyl’s speech would know for certain that it’s impossible for over 90 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services to be abortion? In other words, if you weren’t told it was an “exaggeration for purposes of illustration”, would you have known it was when you heard it the first time? Was the 90 percent figure enough to "evoke strong feelings" or create a strong impression (or did you just question it like PolitiFact)?  Secondly, why didn’t Kyl just say it was hyperbole or intended to be an exaggeration, instead of admitting it was just not intended to be factual (but rather used for “illustrative” purposes)? In my Facebook commentary, I said I knew that was not true because I used Planned Parenthood’s services when I was in college. But would someone not familiar with Planned Parenthood know this? Would they repeat it to others as if it was true (a PF criteria for looking at evaluating statements)?

Tchotchkes: A Poetic Commentary about the Donald

"Vote for me or you've got Hell Toupee"

Donald Trump is on the stump
Don’t you take him for a chump
He’s getting a ratings bump
Without taking any lumps
Through Tea Party hoops he jumps
His own ego up he pumps
His own flabby chest he thumps.
Among the two wives he’s dumped
Neither is plump nor a frump
Although his orange hair-do slumps
And when crossed he frets and grumps
Money comes to him in clumps
New York’s royal pain in the rump.

By: Thoughtful Oregon Woman

When Dummies Forget Why They Have Handlers (Part 1)

Click here for Part 2 of When Dummies Forget Why They Have Handlers - Sentence Structure with Sarah Palin

Notes: (as written by Mock the Dummies author, changed only for style and links)

Most of the lines uttered by the wild-wigged dummy are taken word for word from an error-ridden letter to the editor submitted by birther, Donald Trump. The notes below will focus specifically on the punctuation and grammatical errors, with italics to emphasize the improper phrasing. The notes will also provide links to other included utterances made by America’s most famous birther.

1. Gail Collins, a liberal columnist in the New York Times, wrote a vicious article calling Donald Trump a birther:    Donald Trump Gets Weirder, New York Times, April 1, 2011

2.  Now the dummy will respond:  Donald Trump Responds, New York Times, April 8, 2011

3. Even before Gail Collins was with the New York Times, she has written nasty and derogatory articles about me. / Before she was she had. It should be past tense so the tenses match.

4. Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level. / “They are not.” Not “they is not.” / … Who has written? / Me has. / … Her word usage is coming from you. / No. / But isn’t that what you just said with your modifier?

5. There is a very large segment of our society who believe that Barack Obama, indeed, was not born in the United States. / Believes. / Huh? / The segment believes. Segment is singular. / I said segment of our society. / That’s still singular.

6. His grandmother from Kenya stated, on tape, that he was born in Kenya and she was there to watch the birth.

False. Yawn.

7. His family in Honolulu is fighting over which hospital in Hawaii he was born in – they just don’t know.

False. Yawn.

8. He has not been able to produce a “birth certificate” but merely a totally unsigned “certificate of live birth” – which is totally different and of very little significance.

False. Yawn.

9. … there are no records in Hawaii that a Barack Hussein Obama was born there--no bills, no doctors names, no nurses names, no registrations, no payments, etc.

False. Yawn. Ad nauseam.

But wait. Why don’t we know the nurses names?!!! It’s a conspiracy!!!

10. As far as the two notices placed in newspapers, many things could have happened, but some feel the grandparents put an ad in order to show that he was a citizen of the U.S. with all of the benefits thereto. / Two notices – Multiple. Ads. / … Put an ad where?

11. I’m a really smart guy. I was a really good student at the best school in the country.

12. Had this been George Bush or almost any other President or Presidential aspirant, they would never have been allowed to attain office, or would have been thrown out of office very quickly. / He or she.  Not they.

13. In other words, they would become the hottest writer since Watergate, or beyond. / “they” can’t become “a writer”; They can’t become the hottest writer since Watergate because Watergate wasn’t a writer; “hottest” is a way to describe a Miss America contestant not a journalist; and when you end a sentence with “Watergate, or beyond” you sound like Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story.

14. We believe the letter includes the following punctuation errors:

          bestsellers), is

          Ms. Collins’s advice

          For some reason, the press protects

15. "You can tell Obama did the second book himself because it read like it was written by somebody of average intelligence with a high school education." (Donald Trump, April 8, 2011)

16. RELEASE THE GMAT SCORE ON THE WHARTON APPLICATION!

We at Mock The Dummy take the position that a person who makes these basic errors in grammar and punctuation could not pass Wharton’s rigorous admissions standards.  We demand that Donald Trump (or Wharton Business School) release the application, including the GMAT scores.  The topline number will not be sufficient. We demand release of the long-form GMAT score, which includes separate math and verbal scores. Mock The Dummy take the position that a person who makes these basic errors in grammar and punctuation could not pass Wharton’s rigorous admissions standards.  We demand that Donald Trump (or Wharton Business School) release the application, including the GMAT scores.  The topline number will not be sufficient. We demand release of the long-form GMAT score, which includes separate math and verbal scores.

BNV Kvetchable Moments

A recent post at Jeff Dyberg’s “BewzNewznVewz” (BNV) appears to be another baseless complaint about the PolitiFact (PF) selection machine. He needs to keep his day job as a PolitiFact Bias cheerleader and Facebook whiner (as well as the one where he gets his actual income, if he has one, since probably no one would pay him for this). His post did raise an issue with regard to PolitiFact’s being “forced”  to make the supposedly biased selection of statements in order to avoid "poor reflections on Obama.” He termed it a “teachable moment” of PF’s “subtle bias.” But is it?

As part of those  reflections, it should be noted that Obama has received 50 False and Pants on Fire rulings, 10 full flips, and 41 promises broken on the "Obameter" from PolitiFact.  That's just over 100 poor reflections.

Anyway, Dyberg begins with a listing of PolitiFact’s principles as to how it chooses statements:

Because we can't possibly check all claims, we select the most newsworthy and significant ones…..

In deciding which statements to check, we ask ourselves these questions:

Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable? We don’t check opinions, and we recognize that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole.

Is the statement leaving a particular impression that may be misleading?

Is the statement significant? We avoid minor "gotchas"’ on claims that obviously represent a slip of the tongue.

Is the statement likely to be passed on and repeated by others?

Would a typical person hear or read the statement and wonder: Is that true?

He tries to make a case that recent statements by Dennis Kucinich concerning the constitutionality of Obama’s actions with regard to Libya are so “significant and noteworthy” that they should have been rated for PolitiFact’s Truth-O-Meter.

The issue is that during the same week this rating was published, Kucinich was making the rounds on news networks suggesting President Obama has committed an impeachable offense by launching military strikes in Libya without Congressional approval…

The amount of readers asking if Kucinich was being accurate when he very publicly and repeatedly accused the Commander in Chief of violating the United States Constitution by unilaterally engaging in a very unpopular and violent military action, and therefore may be subject to impeachment, was apparently nil.

The truth is that PolitiFact isn't rating the obvious Kucinich blurb because it would force them to confront an issue that reflects poorly on Obama.

First off, this issue was addressed twice, one of which Dyberg admits to: on March 23 with a “Full Flop” ruling on Obama.  It was also the topic of a ruling of Half True on Charlie Rangel who stated on Fox News “Franklin Roosevelt (was) the last president to come to the Congress to ask for permission to engage into war."

Politi-Score: Combined Results through March 31

Here are the PolitiFact (PF) rulings (now 3,010 total) distributed by percentage of total through the six PF ruling categories, showing how the Democrats/Liberals compare to the Republicans/Conservatives.  The Democratic "truthiness" advantage continues, with the Democrats/Liberals having a current Politi-Score of 47.2 compared to the Republicans/Conservatives 34.9, about  35% higher.  The totals reflect PolitiFact National and all its state partnerships.  Note that those without a Republican/Conservative or Democratic/Liberal affiliation are not shown here.

These results also include non-office holders, groups, blogs and e-mails.

Politi-Express Mostly True Review

It was difficult deciding how to classify or tag this post: it’s not a criticism of one of Sublime Bloviations’ Grading PolitiFact (PF) series, so it’s not a Lil White Lie; it’s not really about another PolitiFact Detractor. It’s not about the Politi-Score (although my conclusion takes it into account), but since it is about PolitiFact, it doesn’t really belong under the Sidebar tag. It’s also not Grading PolitiFact Liberal Style, as I’ve noted some Democrat rulings to be lacking. I’ve decided to include it under the PolitiFact Detractor category, as sort of my own PolitiFact Detraction.  It's also being called "Politi-Express" since this one post covers 13 rulings briefly and "expressly" instead of one detailed post for one ruling.

My goal was to look at “numbers” claims to see just how far they off they could be to make the grade as a “Mostly True” ruling. Here I am examining 13 Mostly True rulings of 8 Democrats/Liberals and 5 Republicans/Conservatives done during the first quarter of 2011. What I found was at least two designations or categories of Mostly True judgments. The first one is the one most subject to allegations of selection bias, and the most contentious as to the validity of the ruling--these are claims where the number is essentially correct, and often very close or right on the money, but is used to misrepresent or distort another point.  The second one is fairly straight-up numbers claims where the message or point is more in keeping with the number.

Saved by Zero. NewsMax, a conservative news website, sent out an e-mail in January stating: "The refusal of many federal employees to fly coach costs taxpayers $146 million annually.". PolitiFact ruled Mostly True, although the number was right on, off by “zero.” But their using the word “refusal”  is what pushed it from True to Mostly True.  PolitiFact:

The GAO's methodology doesn't delve into the question of the employee's motives when seeking a premium-class flight, so we think '"refusal" is too strong a word for Newsmax to use when describring how the federal employees reacted to the idea of flying coach.

Besides spelling describing “describring” there can be a number of reasons for not flying coach which would not come under “refusing”: if the travel arrangements were done at the last moment, it could be that first class was all that was available. There are also security considerations, which is why most businesses fly employees “business” class overseas. If the employee is carrying special, crucial equipment which was checked, first class would guarantee the “luggage” would not be lost, since that’s (usually) part of first class service. There may also be time considerations.

PolitiFact was generous (or should I say, charitable) in giving NewsMax a Mostly True on this one. But I also have mixed feelings on a Half True ruling.

Not so fair and balanced. Bill O’Reilly, who calls himself a political Independent, but we all know better, said on his Fox News show in February: "The right-to-work states have much lower level of unemployment than the union states do."

Sidebar: Cheaper by the politi-Dozen

PolitiFact Florida explains Rick Scott’s change in position on the Florida state budget for education as follows, in this ruling from February: (italics added for emphasis)

Scott's two-year spending plan would shrink the overall state budget from $70.3 billion to $65.9 billion in 2011-2012 and to $63.3 billion in 2012-2013. Cuts were expected almost everywhere -- except in the area of education, where Scott has said that funding would remain the same.

At least, that's what people thought.

Scott's proposed budget for next year includes billions of dollars in education cuts. …Some of that loss is offset by having teachers contribute 5 percent to their retirement and by the inclusion of temporary federal education dollars. Still, per-student funding would shrink if Scott's budget is ultimately approved…

The PolitiFact partnership paper of the ruling's writer Aaron Sharockman, the Miami Herald, called it Flip-flop Number One in an article entitled “Budget Shows 4 Rick Scott Flip Flops in 1 day” which was linked to the St. Petersburg Times under the title “Rick Scott’s Budget Flip Flops.”

But Sharockman called it a False under the Truth-O-Meter.

PolitiFact explains the Flip-O-Meter this way:

Like our Truth-O-Meter, the Flip-O-Meter begins with good journalism. When a candidate is accused of flipping, reporters and researchers examine the candidates' statements and voting records. Have they hedged their words over time? Shifted their tone? Changed their voting patterns?

Then, we rate whether the candidate has truly flipped:

    No Flip - No substantial change of position. The candidate has been consistent.

    Half Flip - A partial change of position or inconsistent statements.

    Full Flop - A major reversal of position; a complete flip-flop.

We are not making a value judgment about flip-flopping. Some people say it shows inconsistent principles and lack of backbone. Others say it's just pragmatism and willingness to compromise.

As we did with the Truth-O-Meter, our goal with the Flip-O-Meter is to provide you with a helpful tool so you can make a more informed decision when you vote.

Well, this helpful tool is telling me that Rick Scott changed his position--he flipped. In fact, a “full flop”. . Sharockman examined his statements and found he hedged his words:

Tchotchkes: The GOP warned you!

Announcing a New Page: Guide to PolitiFact Detractors

Once I got going with the category PolitiFact Detractors, with the many blogs and websites I posted about, it seemed I needed to find a way to consolidate them with links so readers could see how much there was out there, but all in one place.  The designated page for this seems to suit this purpose; I had to teach myself some html to create anchors so that users could move around the page easily, and they seem to do the job. 

This page will be updated as I find other PolitiFact-targeted websites, and these sites as well as any responses I offer will be posted on this page as links.

Thanks for all the suggestions, keep 'em coming!

Politi-Score: 1st Quarter 2011 By State

Well, in a previous post I noted how PolitiFact (PF) Ohio had the highest Politi-Score--the highest level of "truthiness"-- for Republicans, and exceeded the Democrats.  Looks like we've reversed course at PF Ohio this first quarter of 2011, in a big way.   

PF Ohio had a roughly equivalent number of rulings for current and former officials: 19 Democrats, and 22 Republicans.   In that regard not much can be gleaned from the huge variances in Oregon and Rhode Island.  Oregon had ten Democrat and only FOUR Republican rulings, while Rhode Island had nine Democrat rulings, and only TWO Republican.  But overall, the Republican rulings outnumbered the Democrats 3 to 2 (201/131).  In Florida, there were 7 Democrat rulings compared to 40 for Republicans.  In Texas the Republican rulings outnumbered Democrat by 2 to 1 (32/16).

But that's probably because there are many more Republican office holders in Texas and Florida.  In Florida, my winter residence, we have a new Republican governor (Scott), a new Republican Senator (Rubio) and the Republicans dominate the local and national congresses.  So you get what you get.

Sidebar: PolitiFact Rates Itself "Barely True"

Selecting the photo links to the "file" below is supposed to tell you Abele's political affiliation.

Update April 20, 2011: It was noted in this post that Chris Abele was running for office of Milwaukee County Executive in a special election held April 5.  He handily won to the dismay of Scott Walker.

In gathering the data for my Politi-Score analyses, I often have to figure out the true political affiliation of a candidate, non-candidate, blog, chain e-mail etc., because PolitiFact (PF), the source of my data, does not provide any, such as for one Chris Abele, for whom PolitiFact Wisconsin gives a “None” in describing him as a “philanthropist running for Milwaukee County Executive, a non-partisan office”:

There might not be any more rulings for Abele if he loses this special election.

But PF has actually provided its own ruling which clearly describes Abele’s political bent:

Politi-Score: Cheesy and Sleazy in Wisconsin

The numbers are in:  484 total PolitiFact (PF) rulings, nationally and state-wise, for the first three months of 2011.  They break down as follows, along with the Politi-Score, which averaged 44.4.

Beginning about the month of February, there were outcries, protests and much contentious back and forth between the Wisconsin state government and public employees and teachers in their capitol of Madison, as Governor Scott Walker sought to curtail collective bargaining.  And if the Politi-Score is any evidence, that back and forth just managed a "Barely True", far less than the general average. Yes, among the other states, PF Rhode Island may have a Politi-Score of 27, very close to that of PF Wisconsin, but they only had 22 rulings, not enough for a good measure (also, the Politi-Score for "current and former officials" at PF Rhode Island was a more average 42; not so for Wisconsin). Wisconsin had the second highest number of rulings to PolitiFact National for the first quarter.

This seems to support the theory that PolitiFact selects statements based on what's in the public eye at the moment, because the Wisconsin protests were certainly garnering a lot of attention.

The Politi-Score for PF Wisconsin was even lower, a paltry 19.3 for the month of February, when most of the protests had began.  But MOST interesting:  the Democrats' Politi-Score average in February was 17.9...but the Republicans were higher at a slightly more "truthful" 20.0.  More later.