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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Wrong Paul

Ron Paul doesn’t have much of a chance of winning the Republican nomination, but he persists with his well-funded campaign and even talks of turning it into a permanent “Revolution” that will continue far beyond 2008. We’ve given his statements little attention until now. But here we look at some of his more outlandish claims.

Peas in a Pod

Summary

A radio ad sponsored by Hillary Clinton reprises her misleading claim that Barack Obama likes Republican ideas. Obama has responded with an ad that makes a half-true accusation that Clinton "championed" NAFTA. We find that both claims are misleading and that the candidates are, in fact, making mountains of molehills.

Specifically, we found that:

Clinton’s ad falsely implies that Obama supported "special tax breaks for Wall Street" and running up the deficit, and that he opposed minimum wage increases while refusing to deal with the housing crisis.

Short Ads, Even Shorter on the Facts

Summary
Two recent ads by the Edwards campaign are quick and to the point, but they miss the mark. One claims that Edwards is the "only" Democrat who "beats" the leading Republican contenders in "the recent" CNN poll. Actually, Edwards wasn’t even included in the most recent CNN poll; the ad is referring to an older one. More recent polling has found that both Obama and Clinton are leading all of the Republican front-runners.