Politi-Score: Three Debates, Part 2

Before a review of some of the rulings made on statements in the recent three Republican debates, I thought it might be a good idea to present a topic breakdown.

Click to enlarge:  Healthcare/Medicare, jobs, social security and the debt ceiling made up 66% of the fact-checked topics in the debates.

The Number One Topic of fact-checking interest was Healthcare/Medicare, followed by Jobs and then Social Security. Most reviewed Topic Number 4, the Debt Ceiling, was a one-man, or I should say, one-woman topic, as all the rulings were on Michele Bachmann, centered on her determined-to-be-false “Obama blank check” claims, mostly made during the first debate in Ames. She also Politi-Scored a hefty negative on this topic at -88. Including Bachmann’s topic of the debt ceiling, these four topics made up two-thirds of those fact-checked from the debates.

Healthcare/Medicare, besides being the most fact-checked, had one of the most negative Politi-Scores at a slightly-worse-than-Mostly-False -61. Healthcare/Medicare was also a topic dominated by Michele Bachmann, with her making 11 of the 16 statements fact-checked and the rest divided between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney (oh, and a single one by Tim Pawlenty).

There were a few miscellaneous topics that were specialties of certain debaters. A good example is the Federal Budget, which consisted of a statement by Newt Gingrich (his contention that he balanced it four years in a row, determined to be a misleading claim by the fact-checkers). Another one was Border Security and Rick Perry’s challenging claims that Obama made about it at El Paso, Texas, which PolitiFact found to be Half True and the other fact-checkers, misleading.

So now we have a pretty good over-view of the fact-checking side of the three debates. For a heads up on the next item of interest, I’ll note that there were 51 fact-checks representing 21 statements where the fact-check was re-covered, or duplicated. So please stay tuned as I sort through them.