If using partial truths in political advertising is an art, then ads in the Wisconsin recall election for governor should be in a museum. Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett are among the Democrats seeking to unseat Republican Gov. Scott Walker …
President Obama says Mitt Romney has embraced a budget that could throw hundreds of thousands of children out of Head Start classrooms, eliminate air traffic control services in some places, and “ultimately end Medicare as we know it.” Romney says that’s just “rhetorical excess” and …
An Obama campaign film, narrated by actor Tom Hanks, casts the president, not surprisingly, in the best light. But the 17-minute video lacks context and take liberties with some facts on health care and the auto bailout: The film says …
Two new TV ads from a pro-Rick Santorum super PAC attack Mitt Romney and President Obama on Republican hot button issues: debt, taxes and oil. But the ads mislead on several fronts. One ad states that Romney supported …
Tea party-aligned FreedomWorks for America has launched campaigns against several Republicans whom it deems too moderate, including Senate veterans Orrin Hatch and Richard Lugar. But some of the group’s claims miss the mark. A TV ad targeting Hatch …
Can the “Lie of the Year” still be used to defeat Republicans? Democrats hope so, and a super PAC is using an Iowa congressional race to retest the claim that House Republicans voted to “end Medicare.” But we find the Iowa ads to be little improved from last year, when …
Is the Obama administration correct when it claims its contraception mandate will be “cost neutral” for insurance companies? Or are the critics right when they say Catholic institutions will pay a hidden cost in the form of higher premiums when their insurers are required to give “free” contraceptives …
The exaggerated Republican claim that the new health care law “kills jobs” was high on our list of the “Whoppers of 2011.” But the facts haven’t stopped Republicans and their allies from making the “job-killing” claim a major theme of their campaign 2012 TV ads: Five ads by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce …
With Rick Santorum polling well in Mitt Romney’s birth state, a high-stakes TV shootout has broken out in Michigan. But some shots are off the mark. An amusing Santorum ad features a Romney look-alike machine-gunning mud at a cardboard cutout of Santorum. But …
The wind-power lobby is spinning the facts in a $1.4-million TV ad campaign aimed at extending a lucrative tax break worth billions to the industry. Its ads claim that Congress is “threatening new taxes” targeting wind power, which isn’t true. No “new taxes” are envisioned. Instead, Congress is …