Author Archives: Viveca Novak

Robo-attacks

Posted on October 20, 2008

Late last week Huffington Post broke the news that a massive robo-call campaign linking Obama and former Weather Underground activist Bill Ayers was targeting voters in numerous states, including Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Maine. Paid for by the McCain-Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee, the call tells listeners that …
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Judge’s Attack Ad Draws Complaint

Posted on October 16, 2008

Last spring’s Supreme Court race in Wisconsin featured some ugly ads, so ugly that we wrote about the false or misleading claims in them several times. Now, one of the worst of those spots (in our humble opinion) is the subject of a complaint by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission. The …
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‘He Lied’ About Bill Ayers?

Posted on October 10, 2008

Summary In a TV ad, McCain says Obama "lied" about his association with William Ayers, a former bomb-setting, anti-war radical from the 1960s and ’70s. We find McCain’s claim to be groundless. New details have recently come to light, but nothing Obama said previously has been shown to be false. …
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Tax Cuts for Oil Companies?

Posted on October 2, 2008

McCain isn’t proposing a special tax break for oil companies, despite Joe Biden’s mention (more than once) of the $4 billion cut they’d get. As we’ve noted previously, McCain’s plan would cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent — for ALL corporations, not just oil companies. It …
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Obama’s Stem Cell Spinning

Posted on September 30, 2008

Summary An Obama-Biden radio ad hammers McCain for being opposed to stem cell research. Not true. Meanwhile two spots from the McCain-Palin campaign, together with the Republican National Committee, describe McCain’s support for the research; they’re largely accurate. By saying that "John McCain has stood in the way – he’s opposed …
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Chummy with Chavez?

Posted on September 26, 2008

If it’s loud, profanity-laced, anti-American vitriol from a foreign leader you’re looking for, Hugo Chavez is your man. And a new McCain-Palin ad, running in Florida, tries to make it appear that Obama would begin cuddling up to the Venezuelan leader first thing after testing out his Oval Office desk …
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Call of the Wild

Posted on September 24, 2008 , Updated on September 26, 2008

Summary A new ad from Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund shows the pursuit and shooting of a wolf from a small plane and tells viewers that Sarah Palin "actively promotes" such killings. It's true that she does, and in 2007 she offered $150 payments for anyone who brought the left …
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Guilt and Associations

Posted on September 23, 2008

Summary A McCain-Palin ad says that Obama was "born of the corrupt Chicago political machine" and implies that the candidate himself is corrupt by association with four local political figures. But the ad’s implication and many of its supporting details are false. In fact, this is a particularly egregious example …
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Biden Refusing to Pay Campaign Debt?

Posted on September 19, 2008

Q: Is Joe Biden refusing to pay a $150,000 campaign debt? A: Contrary to a claim in a chain e-mail, public records show Biden paid his debt to an air charter company in full, well before Obama tapped him for vice president. The accountant who wrote the e-mail now says …
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If They Keep Saying It, It Must Be So

Posted on September 10, 2008

Today’s Washington Post has a story about the repetition of deceptive statements in the campaign, leading with McCain’s and Palin’s claim that Palin told Congress “Thanks, but no thanks” for the Bridge to Nowhere. It’s a standard line in their stump speeches, despite the fact that we and a slew …
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