Truth Index: Individual Truth Index Fest

Presentation of the PolitiFact (PF) Truth Index individually can be done in any number of ways. Some people want to see everything, others want a more current perspective. Most want to see Republicans versus Democrats. Some want just to see the ratings for people. Some want them highest to lowest in terms of the Truth Index. Some want comparisons. So I’m going to show a little bit of everything.

I had done something on the presidential contenders, but every day this past week, the contenders seemed to be dropping like flies. At this point we’re down to the Final Four. But I’m going to include all of them since they all qualified because of the number of rulings PolitiFact made during the debates.

So I will start with 2011 and work my way down (or up) the various statistical machinations.

2011. The top 25 2011 politicians are listed here in the PolitiFact app format, from highest on the Truth Index to the lowest. I asterisked the Democrats…because there weren’t too many this year. Donald Trump and Herman Cain bottomed out the entire list, with Trump’s birther buffoonery giving him a negative 80 Truth Index for his 10 rulings, while Cain had 23 rulings with a negative 61.

Click to enlarge:  Tim Pawlenty was most truthful of ALL candidates, including Obama, according to the Truth Index.

The most honest Republican Truth Index-wise was Florida Senator Marco Rubio at a positive 30 Truth Index. Other than DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz at a precise “Half True” zero on the Index, all of the Democrats occupied the positive side of the chart. The Republican presidential contenders varied a great deal other than the extremes of Trump and Cain: Tim Pawlenty, the first candidate to drop out of the campaign, was getting the highest rating, a positive 13, edging out President Obama.

2011 and prior (ALL rulings). Some of the candidates, Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain and Donald Trump, had not been rated by PolitiFact at all prior to 2011. The ratings shown for them are “all time.” So, it may be interesting to see how the candidates compare overall, by including every PolitiFact ruling done. Here’s how it would look for the same people in the same format above.

Click to enlarge

Change from 2010 overall to 2011 overall. But there are those that may be interested in the delta: the (cumulative) change in Truth Index up until the end of 2010, to the end of 2011. Here is how that looks, although a little explanation is necessary: with the exception of Ohio Governor John Kasich, those candidates without 2011-prior rulings obviously don’t show a blue bar. Kasich doesn’t show a 2011 red bar because he scored a Truth Index score of exactly zero for 2011 for his 27 rulings.

Click to enlarge:  Mitt and Newt (highlighted) both dropped a bit but not much; Obama held steady; Bachmann greatly improved.

This comparison shows how most of the presidential candidates fell down in the Truth Index, as (someone might say) it appears PolitiFact was finding a lot more untruthful statements during the debates and in other venues of the Republican presidential campaign. On the other hand, the increased attention to one-time presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, resulted in a plethora of new PF rulings on her which bettered her pants partly on fire negative 123 Truth Index to a close to mostly false negative 63. Clearly, she had more opportunity to get PolitiFact points with her candidacy.

Some, like Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Obama, kept their averages roughly the same. Rick Perry had a safety-in-numbers advantage in that with the help of PolitiFact Texas, he’s one of the very few with over 100 rulings. This mitigated any large changes.

Everything and Every One. The top sixty recipients of ten or more PF rulings comprised 2,075, or 44%, of the 4,707  rulings published through the end of 2011. Here’s the list in alphabetical order: it includes the political affiliation, the number of rulings, the Truth Index, and the percentage of False and Pants on Fire rulings. An analysis was also done on how the Democrats and Republicans compared in terms of this percentage (to update what was found by Eric Ostermeier at Smart Politics in 2010). I’ll be publishing that later, although those really interested can figure it out from this info unless they’re severely mathematically challenged.

Click to enlarge:  Some out of office and former candidates (who lost) are included here along with organizations, bloggers and chain e-mails.

The Final Four. Here’s how the PolitiFact app looks with regard to the presidential candidates as we know them this Friday, January 20 (although this includes only all 2011 rulings) in the PolitiFact app format.

Click to enlarge:  Ron Paul and Mitt Romney's Truth Index averages have taken a beating this year.

Here’s how they look with the Final Four combined versus Democrat Obama. It should be noted that the most truthful (Pawlenty, Huntsman) and the least truthful (Cain, Bachmann) are no longer included. I’m not sure they would have affected the averages very much.