Politi-Scoring the Ames Debates: Ceiling Fans

Reviewing the fact-checks of the recent Republican debate in Ames, Iowa, at the three sites that the Politi-Score is ascribed to (PoliGraph got left out as it did not do a review and as noted before, is more of a PolitiFact Junior/Minnesota) it becomes obvious who they tend to concentrate on: the person who ultimately won the Saturday “Straw Poll”, that is, Michele Bachmann, with a distant second by perceived strongest contender Mitt Romney. The fact-checks of statements by Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum seemed to be a courtesy if anything by FactCheck.org.

There were 24 statements fact-checked in total: 8 of them (1/3) were made by Bachmann, 5 by Romney, 3 each Paul and Pawlenty, 2 for Huntsman, and 1 each for Cain, Gingrich and Santorum. Doing an individual Politi-Score would not make much sense. In total, however, this is how it looked for each of the fact-checking websites, along with the aggregated Politi-Score.

Overall, you can compare the debate Politi-Score of (-54) to that of ALL 2011 PolitiFact Republicans (-23) or ALL 2011 Washington Post Fact Checker Republicans (-60). It seems PolitiFact found them (far) less truthful while the Washington Post found them a bit more. It should be noted, however, that PolitiFact had the "most truthful" debate score (-30) which compares more closely with their overall 2011 Republican of (-23).

This was the most "popular" fact-checked statement at the Ames debates.

Along with the most fact-checks, Bachmann had the most replications. The most re-covered fact-check was Bachmann’s distorted contentions regarding the debt ceiling: that raising the debt ceiling was giving Obama a blank check (False by both FactCheck.org and the Washington Post Fact Checker), and that the Standard and Poor downgrade of U.S. Treasuries proved she was right about not raising the debt ceiling (False at PolitiFact and “a mischaracterization” at Washington Post FactChecker). Mitt Romney was the only other one re-covered for two statements, and the only Pants on Fire from PF. Tim Pawlenty did have one very True statement about Bachmann (which no one checked, although he did make one other about Romney rated True): that she has a reputation for making false statements. He must be reading those fact-checking sites.