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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Stories by Viveca Novak

Sunday Replay

October 4, 2010

Sunday morning’s talkathons featured a few misstatements in a debate between Kentucky’s Senate contenders, and some confusion about debts and deficits.   
 Kentucky Senate Candidates Debate
"Fox News Sunday" hosted a debate between Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul, a Republican, and his Democratic opponent, Jack Conway. 
Paul’s statements about the economic and citizenship status of the country’s uninsured population were false:

Paul: Well, there are two aspects to health care problems. One’s the expense and one’s access.

Dust-Up in Coal Country

October 1, 2010

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is under fire from his Republican opponent, John Raese, for supposedly undermining the coal industry. Raese’s ad is misleading, though. Even the coal producers disagree with it.
The two are competing to fill the last two years of the late Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd’s term.

Raese says that Manchin "passed a law that eliminates 25 percent of coal usage in our power plants." But that’s not true. The Alternative and Renewable Energy Portfolio Act,

Crossroads Jam-Up

October 1, 2010

The latest ads from the American Crossroads “super PAC” attack Democrats running for Senate seats in Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Nevada, Missouri and New Hampshire. The ads contain a number of misleading and false claims. …

Toss-ups: Wisconsin

September 22, 2010

Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin is attacking his Republican challenger for denouncing taxpayer aid to businesses after accepting a government subsidy for his own firm. GOP challenger Ron Johnson says Feingold’s ad is “wrong” …

NRSC Ad a Loser in Kentucky

September 17, 2010

The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s first ad against Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway attacks him for supporting "a government takeover of health care."
This isn’t the first time we’ve written about Republican ads mischaracterizing the new health care law as a "government takeover," and unfortunately we’re certain it won’t be the last. This is one of the GOP’s top campaign themes.

The ad against Conway, Kentucky’s attorney general, also hits him for not joining other, mostly Republican,

Misleading Onslaught by 60 Plus

September 17, 2010

The conservative 60 Plus Association has launched a flurry of ads against 16 Democrats, many of them in tight House races. The group is spending more than $5 million – from donors whose identities it doesn’t have to disclose – to run the ads saying the lawmakers “betrayed” their constituents by voting …

Attack on Giffords Comes Up Short

September 8, 2010

An attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by a group called Conservatives for Congress hoodwinks viewers with selectively edited clips from a House hearing earlier this year.
The TV ad, which has been running in the Tucson market, lampoons the Arizona Democrat for asking Gen. David Petraeus about the military’s use of alternative energy sources such as hydro and solar power in Afghanistan. The question "left Gen. Petraeus almost speechless," the ad’s narrator says. Petraeus, who at the time was Commander of the U.S.

More Bailout Baloney

September 8, 2010

Four more freshman House Democrats are claiming in ads to have opposed the Wall Street bailout.
We wrote last week about five ads being run by first-term Democrats claiming they voted against the bailout, which created the unpopular Troubled Asset Relief Program. But Congress approved the bailout program before these lawmakers were even elected, much less sworn in.
It appears the misleading claim is contagious: Now Betsy Markey of Colorado and Mark Schauer of Michigan all have new ads that contain that assertion.

Democratic Bailout Baloney

September 3, 2010

At least five freshman Democratic House members are running ads claiming they voted against the bank "bailout," when in fact none was in Congress when the bill setting up the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, was enacted.

Mary Jo Kilroy says she "voted against the bank bailout."
Kathy Dahlkemper says she voted "against a bailout that helped Wall Street."
Frank Kratovil claims to have cast his vote in opposition to "the big bank bailout."
Dina Titus’

Democrats Misfire on Social Security — Again

September 2, 2010

In Wisconsin and Kentucky House races, the Democrats are attempting to mislead voters into believing the Republican candidates support the privatization of Social Security — despite evidence to the contrary.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is up with an ad attacking Republican Sean Duffy in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, but the spot mischaracterizes Duffy’s position on Social Security. While Duffy has made some ambiguous statements in the past, he has never said he supports a privatized Social Security system,