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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Did Clinton Darken Obama’s Skin?

Obama supporters on the Internet are agitated over the apparent darkening of Obama’s image in a Clinton attack ad.Our video team took a look. Our conclusions: The Obama frames from the ad do appear darker than other video of Obama from the same event. However, the YouTube copy of the ad, on which the bloggers base their conclusions, is darker overall than other copies of the ad. We obtained a digital recording of the ad as it actually appeared on a Texas TV station, and it is lighter.

Misleading Ads in Texas

Summary
The American Leadership Project, an independent group raising large donations to support Clinton, is running two ads in Texas praising her health care plan. One misrepresents what FactCheck.org said about her plan. Another plucks a positive phrase, movie review-style, from a decidedly mixed analysis.
The first ad says FactCheck.org said that "Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan would help every American get affordable, quality health care" while Obama’s plan would leave millions without coverage. What we actually said is that Clinton’s plan also "would leave out a million people or perhaps more."

More NAFTA Nonsense

Barack Obama’s campaign is distributing a mailer in Ohio that plays upon anti-NAFTA feelings in the Buckeye State. But the flier is misleading: Obama is quoted as saying that “one million jobs have been lost because of NAFTA, including nearly 50,000 jobs here in Ohio.” But those figures are highly questionable and from an anti-NAFTA source.

The Facts About ‘NAFTA-Gate’

Clinton’s spokesman says a newly surfaced memo proves that Obama’s campaign issued false denials about sending a private message to Canadian officials to disregard his criticisms of NAFTA. The Obama camp says it’s all a misunderstanding, and the Canadian embassy in Washington says it regrets the whole thing.

World Trade Center Victims

Q: How many World Trade Center victims were from outside the U.S.?

A: About 21 percent were born outside the U.S., but only 1 percent were residents of foreign countries.

‘Dump Dennis?’

Former Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is now fighting to hold onto his House seat in Cleveland, Ohio. He’s the target of a tough attack ad that says he “gives a lot of speeches” but “doesn’t get much done.” But the ad is a textbook example of deceptive political advertising – it uses dramatic-sounding numbers that, put into context, aren’t such a big deal after all