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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Person: Barack Obama

Obama’s Lame Claim About McCain’s Money

June 20, 2008

Summary

Obama announced he would become the first presidential candidate since 1972 to rely totally on private donations for his general election campaign, opting out of the system of public financing and spending limits that was put in place after the Watergate scandal.
One reason, he said, is that "John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs."
We find that to be a large exaggeration and a lame excuse.

Obama’s Inflated Health ‘Savings’

June 16, 2008

Summary

Obama says his health care plan will garner large savings – $120 billion a year, or $2,500 per family – with more than half coming from the use of electronic health records. And he says he’ll make that happen in his first term. We find his statements to be overly optimistic, misleading and, to some extent, contradicted by one of his own advisers. And it masks the true cost of his plan to cover millions of Americans who now have no health insurance.

Obama’s Birth Certificate

June 16, 2008

Q: Has Obama’s birth certificate been disclosed?
A: Yes. His campaign made a copy public after speculation by conservative bloggers that he might not be a “natural-born citizen.”

McCain Votes with Bush?

June 13, 2008

Q: Is it true John McCain voted with George Bush 95 percent of the time?
A: Yes, it’s true, according to Congressional Quarterly’s assessment of McCain’s voting record.

Soft on Iran

June 5, 2008

Summary

John McCain is attacking Barack Obama’s opposition to the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which (among other things) called for labeling Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. McCain claims that Obama’s opposition means that he also opposed calling the IRGC terrorists. We find otherwise. 

Obama cosponsored an earlier bill that also called for designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization.
The Kyl-Lieberman amendment did more than just label the IRGC terrorists. Obama stated at the time that he opposed the bill on the grounds that it constituted "saber-rattling."

Clinton and the Popular Vote

June 5, 2008

Q: Did Clinton win the popular vote?
A: Obama won more votes unless you count Michigan, where he wasn’t on the ballot.

Obama’s ‘Dreams of My Father’

June 3, 2008

Q: Did Obama write that he would "stand with the Muslims" and that he nurses a "pervasive sense of grievance and animosity" toward whites?
A: No. A widely circulated e-mail fabricates some quotes from Obama’s books and twists others.

Clinton Spins Her Donors

May 30, 2008

The debt-strapped Clinton campaign is appealing for money with an e-mail telling potential donors that polls “consistently” show she would beat McCain in November, and that she’s leading Obama in the popular vote. We find both claims are misleading. A number of recent polls actually show Clinton tied with McCain, or even trailing. For most of 2008, polls have shown McCain ahead.

The Budget According to McCain: Part II

May 14, 2008

In our last installment we looked at McCain’s pronouncements on spending cuts to help balance the budget. In Part II, we examine what he’s said on a subject that might be more pleasing to many Americans: lowering taxes. We found exaggerations and distortions here, as well.