If you non-Georgians thought the election went on for too long in your state, pity the poor souls in Georgia who are still being bombarded with political ads. Incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Democratic challenger Jim Martin, a former state representative and head of the Georgia Dept. of Human Resources, along with their parties’ senatorial committees, are continuing to wage a misleading ad war. Any post-election, let’s-all-work-together-now spirit won’t reach Georgia until several days after Thanksgiving, at the earliest.
Person: Barack Obama
Obama’s ‘National Security Force?’
Q: Is Obama planning a Gestapo-like “civilian national security force”?
A: This false claim is a badly distorted version of Obama’s call for doubling the Peace Corps, creating volunteer networks and increasing the size of the Foreign Service.
Closing Arguments: Obama
The Obama-Biden campaign’s closing arguments have included some oft-repeated but still unlikely promises. Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin, meanwhile, served up some new misleading claims in the waning days of the campaign. We examine their final pitch to voters in another article, “Closing Arguments: McCain.” Here we take one last look at Sen. Barack Obama’s claims.
Closing Arguments: McCain
With just hours remaining before Election Day, both the Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin campaigns are making their final pitch for your votes. Sen. Barack Obama hopes to hold off a late-inning McCain rally by repeating several unlikely promises, which we examine in another article, “Closing Arguments: Obama.” Meanwhile, hoping to prove the pollsters wrong, John McCain and Sarah Palin flog some new attempts to cast doubt on Obama’s character; one concerns a seven-year-old interview and another, a five-year-old video.
Advertising Money: McCain vs. Obama
Q: Who spent more money on advertising, McCain or Obama?
A: Overall, Obama has outspent McCain by nearly 3-to-1, but in the closing week it’s been closer to 5-to-1.
It’s Official: Obama “Born in the U.S.A.”
Of all the nutty rumors, baseless conspiracy theories and sheer disinformation that we’ve dealt with at FactCheck.org during campaign 2008, perhaps the goofiest is the claim that Barack Obama is not a “natural-born citizen” and therefore not eligible to be president under the constitution.
This claim was first advanced by diehard Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign for the party’s nomination faded, and has enjoyed a revival among John McCain’s partisans as he fell substantially behind Obama in public opinion polls.
Making Ends Meet
Sen. Barack Obama has said several times that he has proposed cuts that pay for “every dime” of his spending proposals, a claim we’ve called “misleading.” The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center’s analysis, for one, found that “without substantial cuts in government spending” Obama’s plan – and McCain’s, too – “would substantially increase the national debt over the next ten years.”
Obama repeated his claim in his half-hour commercial that aired Wednesday night on major networks and cable television,
Obama Soft on Crime?
With a handful of days to go before Election Day, the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania is going after Sen. Barack Obama with a mailer that claims the presidential nominee has “a record of being soft on crime.” Luckily, our fellow fact-checkers at PolitiFact.com are all over this one. According to PolitiFact, the mailer (also being distributed in Florida) “cherry-picks a few choice examples and conveniently ignores evidence that contradicts its conclusions.”
For example, the mailer says that Obama is “against tougher penalties for street gangs,”
Reckless Driving
The Obama-Biden campaign has released an ad as part of its “closing argument” to the American people. But we have a few factual objections to raise.
The ad is called “Rearview Mirror” and says that if you “wonder where John McCain would take the economy” just “look behind you,” alluding to the Bush administration. The ad even pictures President Bush’s face in the rearview mirror of a car.
But it touts some misleading claims Obama has dropped along the long campaign trail.
Same Old Claims in Another Language
Summary
The presidential campaigns and third-party groups have been bilingual throughout the election, targeting Spanish-speaking voters with some misleading and false ads. Among the recent TV spots:
A McCain-Palin ad tries to paint Obama as a "riesgo" (risk), falsely claiming that his health care plan would require small businesses to cover their employees. But Obama’s plan explicitly exempts small businesses from this requirement, and an adviser has said the threshold "would almost certainly be higher than ten"