Politi-Scoring Romney Part 2: NOBama

Late last year I started including a brief description of the fact-check in my database. I wanted to make it easier to look for overlaps, contradictions, things that might be interesting to post, etc., and although it was a pain to do, it really helped, especially in this case, with Politi-Scoring Mitt Romney.

Mitt "Monty Burns"-style

There was one obviously repeating theme of topic throughout the fact-checks for all the presidential candidates, in particular front-runner Romney. PolitiFact often puts it under the subject of “Candidate Bio” (although not always) which is basically a statement about the “other” candidate they are running against. As I could see it unfold, I tried to make that subject the very first word (regardless of “subject”) so I could later filter them out: Obama.

Statements about Obama and his administration and policies comprised just over 30 percent of the Romney fact-checks. There were 56, of which half were PolitiFact rulings (so about 1 in 4 of the 125 PolitiFact Romney rulings dealt with statements about Obama).

The Romney Politi-Score for just “statements about Obama” was a negative 55.4, which almost triples to the downside his overall Politi-Score of negative 18.6. There were no Romney statements from any of the fact-checkers which could be ruled 100% True when it was about Obama; in fact, PolitiFact had no statement rulings True or Mostly True on Romney when Obama was the subject (their Truth Index in this category was a very “untruthful” negative 64.3). Most of the “Mostly Trues” were “1 Pinnochio” rulings coming from Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post Fact-Checker, some of them combination claims done on Romney speeches.

Some examples of “Mostly Trues”:

• Obama and “crony capitalism” (Washington Post)
• Did Obama say he ranked among top 4 U.S. Presidents? (Washington Post)
• Over 500,000 Californians have lost jobs since Obama became president. (FactCheck.Org)

Most of the “Half Trues” were numbers claims which were difficult to substantiate.  Two appeared to be duplications of each other by PolitiFacts National and Georgia on a statement from Romney about 25 million people out of work (I included this as an “Obama” claim because Romney is implicitly faulting Obama for so many unemployed).  One more looks as if it’s a Romney repeat very similar to the 25 million claim, but in that case it’s 20 million people, and was one of the three fact-checks from AZ (Arizona) FactCheck, done in July of 2011 (they found it “unsupported.”)  Other examples of statements found "Half True":

• Since Obama’s Stimulus over 1 million jobs were lost (PolitiFact Florida)
• Obama raised taxes 19 times (PolitiFact National)
• Obama added 135,000 bureaucrats to workforce (PolitiFact New Hampshire)

The “False” category comprised the highest percentage, or three-eighths of the Romney-on-Obama fact-checks. There were two "three-peaters" in this category. First was that “Obama is ‘only’ president to cut Medicare” fact-checked twice by PolitiFact, the second time a little more specific by claiming the cut was $500 billion. The Washington Post looked at this as well. Another ruling, contested by my conservative counterpart, was re-cycled by PolitiFact (and ruled as False twice despite what he had to say) which was that getting rid of the ACA (Obamacare) would save $95 billion. PolitiFact New Hampshire and National both looked at it , and FactCheck.Org once. Here’s FactCheck.Org’s take on it:

Romney claimed that repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would save “$95 billion a year.” But that only accounts for spending in the law, not spending cuts and revenue-raising provisions that potentially could save even more.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the coverage expansion elements of the law — providing subsidies to individuals to help them buy insurance, expanding Medicaid and offering tax credits to businesses to help them provide coverage — would cost about $1.4 trillion over the 2012-2021 period, and $1 trillion once CBO factors in related coverage savings, such as an excise tax on high-cost health plans offered by employers. That would be $100 billion per year, a bit higher than the figure Romney used. However, that narrow look at the law doesn’t factor in the revenue-raisers or cuts in the law that would save money. And CBO has said those provisions would more than offset the cost.

Other "False" claims included such gems from Romney as:

• “Obamacare” is a government take over of healthcare (2010 PolitiFact Lie of the Year) (FactCheck.Org)
• Obama never worked in the private sector (PolitiFact New Hampshire)
• Obama bows to foreign dictators. (Washington Post FactChecker)

There were five Pants on Fire claims out of the 56: Three were from PolitiFact National and the other two were “4 Pinnochio” awards from the Washington Post FactChecker. One of the Pantalones En Fuego PolitiFact claims is the 2011 Lie of the Year attributed to Democrats, sort of co-opted by Romney: it’s not Paul Ryan’s "premium support" plan which is ending Medicare as we know it, it’s Obama ending Medicare as we know it.

Romney's overall "Obama" score could be worse, as well as the number of Pants on Fire (PoF) claims, because I did not include those where I hadn't included a description in 2011.  In reviewing the PoF claims for Romney at PolitiFact, I noticed "Obama's Worldwide Apology Tour" as described and awarded 4 Pinnochios by the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler covered two times by PolitiFact.  And the PoF claim by Romney that our country is "only inches away from being a free economy" was re-visited as well, although it's another one of those that's debatable as to whether it's directly about Obama. 

Click to enlarge:  NO Trues for any fact-checker, taking these 56 out would improve Mitt to a -2.7 overall Politi-Score

It can be concluded that trash-talking Obama was what brought down Romney’s Truth Index and Politi-Score. In fact, if all the “Obama” rulings were thrown out, Romney’s Politi-Score would rise from negative 18.6 to a more respectable negative 2.7. In a way, PolitiFact detractors could argue that liberal bias drove the selection of checking claims which might be false to favor a liberal’s preferred candidate; but it’s more likely, due to the various fact-checkers covering similar claims, that the reason is the season: we would expect that during a election campaign statements about the opposition would be more likely to be fact-checked. I must admit, however, PolitiFact’s having no Trues or Mostly Trues (at least for the last six months) for Romney’s claims on Obama (while other fact-checkers did) gives me pause. I hope to eventually dig into the huge mass of Obama statements to see how rulings on his comments about his competition have affected his Politi-Score (although there are so many statements overall I will probably just stick with the PolitiFact Truth Index).

Sans Obama-talk fact-checks, Romney would have had the highest Politi-Score of all the presidential contenders who began the journey with him in January. Instead, he takes a number 3 position in terms of “truthiness” after Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman. On the other hand, since Paul and Huntsman were really never in the running or even considered briefly a front runner like the others, it’s interesting that the most “truthful” candidate won the nomination, however biased or unscientific the method of measuring might be.

Click to enlarge: How Romney compared Politi-Score/Truth Index wise to his Republican competition. Scores are rounded.