Doing calculations on PolitiFact (PF) rulings seems to be gaining in popularity. I noted a comment on the Facebook PolitiFact page the other day with regard to Ron Paul being the highest rated person on the PolitiFact’s truth-o-meter; however, I did offer a response that it was not Ron Paul but losing candidate for governor of Florida, Alex Sink. In fact, between Ron Paul and Alex Sink was the liberal public advocacy group moveon.org.
Just so you don’t have to use the link, the Politi-Score is calculated by assigning points to each ruling as follows:
Just so you don’t have to use the link, the Politi-Score is calculated by assigning points to each ruling as follows:
Ruling | Number of points |
| True | 100 |
| Mostly True | 75 |
| Half True | 50 |
| Barely True | 25 |
| False | 0 |
| Pants on Fire! | -25 |
So, for example, if a politician has one True and one False ruling, that would be 100 for True and zero for False, totaling 100 points. Divided by two rulings, the Politi-Score averages to 50.
Getting back to Ron Paul and Alex Sink, here is a listing of everyone who had ten or more PolitiFact rulings from PF’s inception through the end of 2010, listed by highest to lowest Polit-Score. And yes, Michele Bachmann bottomed out the truthometer as the only one with a negative score (some Half Trues and Barely Trues from factchecks her 2011 SOTU response did put her into positive territory).
