Lies Are the New Truth at RNC '08

Mike Huckabee, 2008 Republican National Convention: "And speaking of Governor Palin, I am so tired of hearing about her lack of experience. I want to tell you folks something. She got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

Actual Number of Votes Received by Joe Biden During the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary: 79,754

Actual Number of Votes Received by Sarah Palin During the 1999 Wasilla, Alaska Mayoral Election: 909

Rudy Giuliani, 2008 Republican National Convention: "She’s got an 80 percent approval rating. You never get that in New York City, wow."

Actual Approval Rating for Sarah Palin as Governor according to July 30th Rasmussen Poll: 64%

Sarah Palin, 2008 Republican National Convention: "But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate."

Number of Bills Barack Obama Sponsored While in the Illinois State Senate: 823

And that was just a sampling of last night's non-facts.

What will they try to sell us tonight?

Jaelithe also writes at The State of Discontent.

Comments

[Kirsty Cat]

Sponsor or co-sponsor? Lots of senators sign on for co-sponsorship. That's usually a misleading number (regardless of party).

[jaelithe]

Some of them were co-sponsored, but a surprising number of those were written and sponsored by Obama himself. He was well known in the Illinois Senate for Actually Getting Things Done.

I live right next to Illinois and there is a generally favorable view of Obama over there.

Anyway, the POINT is, she claimed he had not authored any significant legislation, which is simply not true. In the State Senate, he worked on health care legislation, legislation protecting civil rights, legislation providing tax breaks to working families . . . he was the real deal. Certainly not a do-nothing. And it's ridiculous for the McCain campaign to present him as such.

Also, the Republicans are totally taking advantage of Illinois's strange voting system to mock Barack Obama for his "Present" votes there, when there are actually a number of procedural reasons for voting present in Illinois, and in many cases his Present votes helped better legislation pass.

[San Antonio Lawyer]

Yeah I believe some of them are co-sponsored

[aimee]

This is awesome. Thank you!!!

[Kelly H]

Thanks for the numbers. I wanted to research those, it didnt really seem accurate hearing it from the republicans.

[Kristin]

Jaelithe,

I'm putting a post up on BlueOregon about how to combat the effect of Sarah Palin (basically, since she's turning into their biggest fundraiser, fight her by giving until it hurts) and it would be great to use some of these figures...could I include them (I'd acknowledge you and MOMocrats, of course...)

[jaelithe]

Anyone and everyone who wants to use these figures, please do! I have linked to my sources (Wikipedia, Rasmussen and the NYT) here in the post if anyone wants to verify.

We all need to work together to get the facts out.

[hibikir]

It's a pity that the only places many voters go to look for facts are cable news, conservative radio and church-driven e-mail lists.

It is media consolidation that's allowing the Republicans to do as they please, and it all happened on Clinton's watch.

[Nina]

I think I'm ready to hug you Jaelithe. Thanks for getting the facts straight. I wish these were reported in MSM. Why do they not do fact-checking of speeches?

[Julie Pippert]

"Anyway, the POINT is, she claimed he had not authored any significant legislation, which is simply not true. In the State Senate, he worked on health care legislation, legislation protecting civil rights, legislation providing tax breaks to working families . . . he was the real deal. Certainly not a do-nothing. And it's ridiculous for the McCain campaign to present him as such."

That's rather the point, eh. They don't consider those significant things---health care for citizens, civil rights, tax breaks to the working class.

[Christine]

Huckabee's comment was likely tongue-in-cheek (you know, Biden received 0 votes for president...), yet it's also noteworthy that Palin received 115,000 votes for governor. Plus, her 909 votes for mayor were more than 70% of the vote.

Palin's approval rating IS is upwards of 80% according to pretty much every source (you can even check the NYT for that) - and the "Rasmussen poll" listed doesn't give you the actual approval rating.

And she said "major law or reform," not total number of bills. I think you have to agree to disagree on that one.

It's easy to distort statistics in any direction for anyone's purpose. (Something both Democrats and Republicans needs to remember.)

[jaelithe]

Nice try, Christine. But if you read the whole Rasmussen page I linked to, it does list the 64% number. And this Huffington Post article quotes a different source with a similar approval rating number:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/2-top-alaska-newspapers-q_b_122625.html

Palin's approval rating as Governor of Alaska WAS around 80% at the beginning of her term. But it has been dropping since she has been under investigation for ethics violations related to the "Troopergate" scandal.

And many of the bills Barack Obama authored while in the Illinois State Senate were major. In fact, he was involved in passing some of the most important legislation in the state in decades related to civil rights, health care and crime prevention. I will not "agree to disagree" with someone who thinks that health care and civil rights, and crime are "minor" issues. I must instead in fact insist that you talk to your neighbors and ask them what they think the five most important issues in this election are.

As for the votes Sarah Palin received in the Governor's race:

A.) Huckabee wasn't talking about the Governor's race. Huckabee was talking about the mayoral race. And I don't care if she got 70% of the votes in the mayoral race. There are high school prom queens who won more votes than Palin won in the Wasilla mayoral election.

B.) If we're comparing apples to apples, Joe Biden won his latest Senate race in Delaware with 135,253 votes. Oh, and Sarah Palin won NO votes in the Presidential primary race, because she wasn't a candidate.

[The Usual Suspect]

Lies are the new truth at the RNC because it works so well. Say it loud and often and it has the ring of truth. This is why I think McCain is going to win. He is telling voters what they want to hear. 1) Don't worry about conserving energy or making changes, we'll just drill more oil. 2) You're going to get a Gas tax summer holiday, so plan that road trip (gas will be tax free for the summer, but if demand rises the per gallon market price will also rise resulting in a loss of tax revenue, a windfall for Exxon-Mobil and pennies of savings for the consumer). 3) We're going to declare victory in Iraq and bring our troops home (Preferably just before that country collapses. This will be different then a cut and run retreat because it will be called a "victory" and accompanied by a parade) 3) People making 25,000 a year are going to be prosperous due to that extra twenty bucks they will save in tax cuts (although their state and local taxes will go up because the buck has to stop somewhere). He's going to balance the budget and pay for it using the savings from cutting trillions of dollars of obvious and unecessary fat that the last four presidents overlooked during their cuts. 4) He's going to capture Bin Laden (presumably George Bush hasn't done everything in his power to do this eventhough it is one event that might spare him from going down in history as the worst president ever.) His message to simpleton voters is this: "You don't have change what you're doing or how you think, or give anything up. Just trust us, love God and country and the money will trickle down.

[Sisyphus]

"Actual Approval Rating for Sarah Palin as Governor according to July 30th Rasmussen Poll: 64%"

Hmm...

I believe that the 80% approval rating is supported at:

http://momocrats.typepad.com/momocrats/2008/09/lies-are-the-ne.html

"Do you have a very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, or very unfavorable impression of Sarah Palin?

Very favorable 179/404 44.3%
Somewhat favorable 144/404 35.6%
Total somewhat + very favorable 323/404 80.0%

[Sisyphus]

Oops. Link should have been: http://www.haysresearch.com/oc072508.htm

[Christine]

jaelithe -

Well you're right about one thing - Palin's approval ratings have dropped, but they've gone from the 90s to the 80s according, not from the 80s to the 60s as you say. This is according to an actual survey released by Hays Research. You can see that in the link above (thanks, Sisyphus). Also, I didn't mean to say that your source did not quote the 64%, I just meant that that number doesn't mean anything.

Also, I think I need to fall back on the "agree to disagree" on the Obama thing. Bills are not laws, first of all. And I wouldn't call all of them major. One thing you pointed out was civil rights - and, according to your own source, he supported a bill that would initiate a study of the race of people stopped for traffic violations. Initiate a study. Just think how the world will be changed.

And as for Huckabee talking about the mayoral race and not the governor's race, that's true - but then I must remind you he was also talking about the presidential race. (Again, Biden got 0 votes. Huckabee's a funny guy if you pay attention.) And any prom queen that won over 70% of her high school's votes was clearly the most popular. I'm not sure what point B has to do with anything. But, for the record, Biden won 135,170 votes. And, if we're comparing apples to apples, that's only 58%.