In the Ohio Senate race, Democrat Lee Fisher’s first TV ad of the fall campaign misrepresents Republican Rob Portman’s years in the Bush administration:
The ad is wrong when it says Portman, as President George W. Bush’s "trade czar," was responsible for "sending 100,000 Ohio jobs overseas." The 100,000 lost jobs occurred over six years, from 2001 to 2007, but Portman was U.S. trade representative for only one year, from May 2005 to May 2006.
The ad also blames Portman,
An attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by a group called Conservatives for Congress hoodwinks viewers with selectively edited clips from a House hearing earlier this year.
The TV ad, which has been running in the Tucson market, lampoons the Arizona Democrat for asking Gen. David Petraeus about the military’s use of alternative energy sources such as hydro and solar power in Afghanistan. The question "left Gen. Petraeus almost speechless," the ad’s narrator says. Petraeus, who at the time was Commander of the U.S.
Four more freshman House Democrats are claiming in ads to have opposed the Wall Street bailout.
We wrote last week about five ads being run by first-term Democrats claiming they voted against the bailout, which created the unpopular Troubled Asset Relief Program. But Congress approved the bailout program before these lawmakers were even elected, much less sworn in.
It appears the misleading claim is contagious: Now Betsy Markey of Colorado and Mark Schauer of Michigan all have new ads that contain that assertion.
To wrap up the Labor Day weekend, we present the Lindsey Graham edition of a holiday-delayed Sunday Replay, with cameos from a few minor characters.
Graham on Democratic Legislation
On NBC’s "Meet the Press," South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham was skeptical about two Democrat-backed measures, the health care bill and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Graham, Sept. 5: [The health care bill is] going to lead to a government monopoly in health care.
At least five freshman Democratic House members are running ads claiming they voted against the bank "bailout," when in fact none was in Congress when the bill setting up the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, was enacted.
Mary Jo Kilroy says she "voted against the bank bailout."
Kathy Dahlkemper says she voted "against a bailout that helped Wall Street."
Frank Kratovil claims to have cast his vote in opposition to "the big bank bailout."
Dina Titus’
In Wisconsin and Kentucky House races, the Democrats are attempting to mislead voters into believing the Republican candidates support the privatization of Social Security — despite evidence to the contrary.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is up with an ad attacking Republican Sean Duffy in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, but the spot mischaracterizes Duffy’s position on Social Security. While Duffy has made some ambiguous statements in the past, he has never said he supports a privatized Social Security system,
On this week’s Sunday talk shows, we caught the education secretary making a greatly inflated claim about high-school dropouts. Plus, Florida lawmakers made exaggerated statements on tax cuts and support of environmental bills.
Too Cool for School
On ABC’s "This Week," Secretary of Education Arne Duncan greatly exaggerated the number of students leaving school every year:
Duncan: In this country, we have a 25 percent dropout rate. That’s 1.2 million students leaving our schools for the streets every single year.
In Nevada’s Senate race, Republican Sharron Angle and Democrat Harry Reid began airing new commercials Aug. 26. Angle’s attack ad pictures Reid in a "love triangle" with President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and repeats some familiar but misleading claims.
Like Angle’s, Reid’s ad covers familiar ground. All of its claims are rooted in true statements or proposals. But Reid goes too far in one case. Angle did not say that "Medicare and Social Security violate the Ten Commandments."
Politicians often talk about "small businesses." But how small is a small business? Fifty employees? One hundred? Two hundred?
Actually, it’s often much more than that. The Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy defines a small business as one with fewer than 500 employees. And that’s the standard politicians often use.
For example, President Barack Obama repeated a familiar claim on Aug. 19: that "small businesses … create two out of every three new jobs in this country."
Vice President Joseph Biden and House Republican Leader John Boehner both put their partisan spin on the effects of the administration’s economic stimulus spending. But Biden exaggerated, and Boehner got it wrong, according to a report issued later in the day by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.