Politi-Score: PF Ohio and the Truth Index

PolitiFact (PF) Ohio (Stephen Koff) recently did a sort of self-congratulatory one-year anniversary article on the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s foray into doing Truth-O-Meter rulings in partnership with PolitiFact. This was one of the first times I saw more “raw” numbers come out for Democrats and Republicans, as well as the defending of the selection of more Republican statements, Koff’s reason being the same as that I had stated previously: there’s just more Republicans in office since the elections of late 2010, especially in Ohio.

My numbers did not correlate precisely with PF Ohio because of how I had compiled them in 2010, which was by person/entity since the beginning of PF in 2007, not ruling by ruling to differentiate the state. I started doing it ruling by ruling in 2011. So, for example, I had seven more rulings for Dennis Kucinich and three more for Sherrod Brown, because PF National was doing rulings on them prior to PF Ohio’s existence. In addition, there were a few people and groups who, as I just noted in a previous post on light bulbs, do not have an affiliation indicated by PF, when they should. When PF doesn’t show an affiliation, I will do some research to determine one, and if the connection to one party is crystal clear, I will assign it as such.

So, I will just go with PF Ohio’s numbers. Here’s Democrats and Republicans, this time in the mobile app format with the Truth Index ("Score") calculated.

My conservative counterpart (Bryan White) just published an exchange he had with Robert Higgs, who appears to be the lead journalist for PF Ohio, and who responded to some of the commenters to the PF Ohio article. Higgs published this reply concerning PolitiFact bias, which he thereupon immediately published in his blog:

What I can tell you about PolitiFact Ohio is that in our first year we did 81 Truth-O-Meter rulings on statements from Democrats and 103 from Republicans (more on the GOP side principally because Kasich is governor and there's twice as many Republicans in power as Democrats).

The average grade for Democrats: Half True

The average grade for Republicans: Half True

Some say the Texas Rangers have a better team batting average than the Seattle Mariners.

What I can tell you about it is that right now both teams are in the American League.

The Seattle Mariners are batting roughly .250.

The Texas Rangers are batting roughly .250

Bryan White responded in a post through his blog the way I might have, except I would not have used the Rangers-Mariners analogy…I would have used the Truth Index, the actual measure, to show Higgs that there was a statistically significant variance even though they’re both “roughly Half True.”

Higgs isn't saying anything. The "average" when there are only six positions on the scale is a very rough approximation, just like rounding the Rangers' batting average down from .272 and the Mariners' battering average up from .226. Is a difference of .46 statistically significant? You betcha. It's huge.

I’m getting the distinct impression that PolitiFact doesn’t just downplay but obfuscates the fact that the Truth Index averages favor the Democrats. Higgs claims both the Democrats and Republicans are “roughly Half True” but the Democrats have a 32 point advantage (from -13.79 for the Republicans to +18.48 for the Democrats) in the case of PF Ohio.

To take it a step further, here are the Truth Index scores for those six “big wig Ohio politicos” displayed in Koff’s article—but this time shown in the same manner as above, with the highest (most honest) Truth Index ("Score") at the top down to the lowest, next to their names.

Affiliations not shown, but Brown, Kucinich and Portman are the Democrats.



Koff displays photos of John Kasich, Ted Strickland, Sherrod Brown, Rob Portman, Dennis Kucinich and William Batchelder, in that order. Well, in no particular order….based on Truth Index scores, it would be Nos. 3, 5, 1,4, 2, and 6. Personally, I’d rather see it 1 through 6 one way or the other. But putting in the order of highest Truth Index puts the Democrats clearly at the top.

As noted in my analysis of all rulings through June 30 on an individual basis, for those with 15 or more rulings, Kucinich is Number 1 nationally followed by Sherrod Brown at Number 3 (or Number 2 among Democrats). Kasich was Number 13 overall. Portman has just hit 15 rulings, so he might make the next cut. It will be a while before Strickland or Batchelder get there, and at this point, they need more rulings for their Truth Index to have any significance.

Because if there’s something I would stress over and over about the individual Truth Index, it doesn’t mean much until there’s enough rulings to discern a pattern. The first time I used 10 rulings as the minimum, and the last time 15…and I hope set it higher each time.

But on a macro level, there are more than a sufficient number of rulings, and here’s where Bryan White may be right: PolitiFact appears to be greatly downplaying any significance of the Democrat average Truth Index being higher than that of the Republicans. It may be for the obvious reason that pointing out such advantage provides more proof to Conservatives and Republicans that PolitiFact may be liberally biased. The problem is, the Truth Index and the apps add fuel to the fire for those who are curious about just such things (like me).