Candidate Watch
Fact Checker Hits the Road
Saturday 4:30 p.m.
Senator John McCain is still trying to defend himself against accusations that he was in favor of an amnesty and social security payments for illegal immigrants. A questioner at the Town Hall meeting in Peterborough, NH, raised these charges again this afternoon, echoing a recent ad by Mitt Romney. In the street outside, Ron Paul supporters waved banners proclaiming "Stop McCain's amnesty." McCain angrily denied both charges.
It is untrue that McCain ever "voted to allow illegals to collect social security," as Romney put it in his recent radio ad. McCain was one of 11 Republican senators who voted to table an amendment in May 2006 that would have barred immigrants whose status was legalized from collecting social security for work performed while they were undocumented. But that negative vote is not at all the same thing as a vote in favor of social security for illegals.
The other charge depends on how you define "amnesty." The McCain immigration bill, which Romney initially supported, did not give a blanket pardon for illegal immigrants. Instead, it proposed a path by which they could obtain citizenship after paying thousands of dollars in fines. It is worth noting that in November 2005 Romney himself described the McCain proposal as "quite reasonable" and "very different from amnesty."
Join me and my colleague this evening for a live fact check of the Republican and Democratic debates from New Hampshire.
Saturday 10 a.m.
Forgive me for not filing earlier on the Mike Huckabee rally in Henniker. Since New Hampshire hotels are chock full, I am staying with in-laws across the border in Massachusetts. My brother-in-law is a serious oenophile, and I felt obliged to respond to his generous offers of hospitality. The Pouilly Fuisse led to the 1990 Pichon something-or-other which led to the vintage port, by which time I was in no condition to even think about fact checking Huckabee's speech. (Contrary to what some people think, it is not all politics, all the time, in these parts.)
It is interesting to compare Huckabee with Obama. They both score highly on the likeability index, and they are both accomplished practitioners of the politics of hope. Huckabee reminds us about his modest beginnings in Hope, Arkansas; Obama jokes that his enemies have labeled him a "hope-monger." But they are also very different. Obama reminds me of some exotic bird, soaring above the crowd. You want to believe his promises, but your skeptical nature holds you back. Huckabee is the regular guy down the street, who entertains you with his guitar and his stories, not all of which are believable.
True to form, Huckabee bounced on stage with Chuck Norris, whom he promptly named as his first secretary of defense. After telling us that he only got one and a half hours sleep the previous night, he said he wanted to prove that Republicans could have "more fun" than Democrats. That was the cue for a half-hour rock and roll show with a group called Mama Kicks, featuring Huckabee and his hand-crafted wooden guitar.
After a warm-up like that, it seems churlish to argue over a few facts, but I will go ahead nonetheless.
I am off to Peterborough to hear John McCain. I will be fact checking the debates live at 7 p.m. this evening from Manchester, so join me then.
Friday 3:30 p.m. Henniker, N.H. I have just come from a Hope-filled Obama rally in Concord, and now realize that there is one essential gizmo I forgot to bring with me to New Hampshire. I remembered the GPS gadget and the Airport, but what I really need is a Time Machine. Obama speeches, in particular, are short on facts but crammed full of promises, many of them so grandiose that they will keep historians busy for decades to come. Here is a sampling from his just concluded 30-minute speech at Concord High School ("Home of the Crimson Tide" and host so far to 11 different presidential candidates).
Actually, that last promise is a scaled-down version of an earlier pledge. As Politico noted back in December, Obama was greeted with loud applause on the campaign trail in Iowa when he announced that lobbyists "won't work in my White House." Evidently, that promise was a little too sweeping (there are 35,000 registered federal lobbyists after all) because Obama now merely says that lobbyists "won't run" his White House.
Remind me to check back in 2012 to see if all those promises are met.
In the meantime, I've moved on to New England College in Henniker ("Home of the Pilgrims") to listen to the Republican victor in last night's elections. The noise from the warm-up band is deafening as we wait for Mike Huckabee (with the ever-present Chuck Norris tagging along) to entertain us with his rock band act.
12:45 p.m.
This is a big experiment, so bear with me if there are some glitches. Even a Fact Checker has to get out of the office occasionally, so I am hitting the road, blogging from New Hampshire. I am headed to Manchester on Southwest Airlines (Boarding Group B) with all the tools of the blogger's trade: laptop, Blackberry, digital camera, digital recorder, GPS locating system (a Christmas present) for tracking the candidates, and a gizmo known as an Airport which will hopefully allow me to keep you up to date from the middle of nowhere. I am a complete novice at this but I am fired up and ready to go, to borrow a phrase I have heard recently.
Over the course of the next five days, I hope to attend rallies and town hall meetings by all the major candidates. First up, Concord, New Hampshire, where Barack Obama is holding a victory rally. Then on to Henniker, a ski resort a few miles to the west, to hear Mike Huckabee. Ace researcher Alice Crites will be backing me up in Washington. If the victors make any questionable claims or statements, I will alert you. I will also let you know if their speeches are fact-free, feel-good exercises, as they were last night.
On Saturday evening, I will be at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, for the back-to-back Republican and Democratic debates. We have assembled a team of crack fact checkers to keep track of the charges and counter-charges. Guest fact checkers will include Glenn Kessler, the Post's diplomatic reporter and a former economics writer, who has been fact checking presidential debates for years, and veteran political reporter John Solomon, who used to truth squad for the Associated Press before joining the Post for the 2008 campaign. Environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin, who has covered Congress for the Post and is now following the campaign, will be joining me in New Hampshire. We will also be consulting outside experts.
Posted on January 4, 2008 at 12:45 PM ET
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Posted by: LonewackoDotCom | January 4, 2008 3:03 PM
Lonewacko, it's a good idea to post links when you make these kinds of claims, in order that you can be fact-checked.
Posted by: Vaxalon | January 4, 2008 3:36 PM
It's plain to see that the Fact Checker doesn't like Obama.
Will FC check on Bush 43's promises from 2000 and 2004 -- it won't require a time machine or waiting four more years.
Bush has been "short on facts but crammed full of promises, many of them so grandiose that they will keep historians busy for decades to come" for 7 years.
BTW, that 'foreign oil' promise may already have been taken care of if Mitt Romney is to be believed...
Americablog.com reports:
Appearing in Iowa on Jan. 2 Romney gave his stump speech and began listing "all the great things that George Bush has accomplished, including lowering taxes (no surprise there) and then added that Bush has "strengthened our economy by getting us off of foreign oil."
http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/romney-says-bush-has-freed-us-from-our.html
Posted by: ffc | January 4, 2008 6:10 PM
Based on your analysis of OBAMA, you should probably add your name to NH primary. Either way, I'll be voting for OBAMA.
Posted by: gametheory | January 5, 2008 1:53 AM
Rather than solely fact check the candidates, the Post would be doing its readers a great service if they also provided a fact check column on statements made by the Administration and congress.
Posted by: rdklingus | January 5, 2008 11:52 AM
The editorial differerences between coverage of Huckabee and Obama are very clear in the juxtaposed posts. Maybe you can blame it on the wine (although after-effects of wine, wine, port followed by too little sleep don't usually make me more 'glowing') but the fairly objective treatment of Huckabee's statements vs. the antipathy towards Obama is easy to detect.
Posted by: ffc | January 5, 2008 1:33 PM
Fact Checker refers to "the 1990 Pichon something-or-other." There is Chateau Longueville au Baron de Pichon-Longueville ("Pichon-Baron") and Chateau Longueville Comtesse de Lalande ("Pichon-Lalande"), both excellent, especially in 1990. Both will be remembered long after Obama, McCain, Huckabee, Paul Romney et al. Anyone with the slightest regard for fact would know or ascertain that. Which one was it?
References to "vintage port" are similarly fact adverse. Which year and which maker matters a great deal. A good vintage port is far more durable and enjoyable than any presidential candidate.
All of this is more easily researched on the internet than recondite sociological, economic or historical facts implicated by this or that claim by some politician. The so-called "Fact Checker's" doesn't have much regard for fact.
Posted by: mnjam | January 5, 2008 4:37 PM
In reply to mnjam, thank you for your interest in these important matters. I have checked with my host. It was the Pichon-Baron, and I can report that it was indeed spectacular. The port was a 1977 Warre.
Posted by: The Fact Checker | January 5, 2008 5:46 PM
John McCain still is insisting his bad bill is not amnesty (but it is!)
Anytime you reward illegal aliens the exact thing they broke the law for. It is amnesty.
In this case; McCain would reward illegals with the right to stay here forever without ever becoming a citizen; and with permanent protection from being deported.
It is obvious that many Americans do not understand the Amnesty Bill John McCain is supporting!
1. All illegal aliens including all convicted of federal crimes ( except a FEW with a certain type of sex crime) including Bank Robbers, illegal who have committed assaults; those who were previously deported.....would be able to receive a "Z-VISA" that would allow those illegal's to stay in the USA FOREVER and collect free benefits from taxpayers!
2. They would be protected from deportation forever!
3. John McCain bill did not require any illegal alien's to apply for citizenship, they could just stay forever use our free benefits; be protected and NEVER even try to be a real citizen; never learn English, never assimilate. IT WAS NOT REQUIRED.
4. Once given a "Z-VISA" illegal alien would have a "special status" that the bill said would make them eligible for all the Welfare (etc.) Benefits that were normally reserved for only US Citizens. So they would be just as uneducated, but able to collect even MORE free Benefits and cost billions more in our tax dollar!
5. Once given a "Z-Visa" their "special status" would allow them to apply for additional visa's to bring all their poor relatives here too.
NO! To John McCain!
YES! YES! To Mitt Romney!
Posted by: Julia Marker | January 6, 2008 11:36 AM
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Despite the fact that our host denies the existence of something that the Canadian government admits exists (the NAFTASuperhighway), I remain cautiously optimistic. Just make sure you have an expert on illegal immigration on hand, and not someone who supports it.