Assessing Political Claims

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How Do We Know What to Believe in the Presidential Campaign?

Jessica, a Media Smarts student, writes:
“I received this forward from a friend not too long ago and it kind of freaks me out. Especially where it lists Obama’s tax policies. I normally wouldn’t pay too much attention to forwards, but this one sources its information. I am just curious as to what your take on this is? I could ask my parents, but I don’t necessarily want the conservative version of whether this is accurate. If you have time it would be great to hear your opinion. The election is so close and I just want to make sure I have all the information before I vote. Thanks!

Professor Pease replies:
Yikes, Jessica. This IS a bit frightening (of course, it is Halloween). I’m not well enough versed on all the comparative policies to give you a reality check on all this (except that I’m a little suspicious of any supposedly independent/neutral source that would have misspelled Barack Obama’s name....).

I do see a number of misrepresentations of both candidates’ positions, at least as I understand them. If this freaked you out, Jessica, that was clearly the intention of the sender. I Googled “Obama-McCain comparison” and found a number of sites, some helpful, some not so much. The problem is that you don’t know who has put this stuff together, and with what intention (sound like a media literacy issue?). Where did your comparison table come from, for example?

Take a look at this site, for instance, by a self-described “Southern ex-conservative” (?), who goes through your comparison table point by point. I don’t know whether to trust this site, either.

What I do know about Obama’s income tax proposal is that it would raise taxes on those in the highest income brackets—way past anywhere I’ll ever be, for example—and reduce taxes on lower- and middle-income people. He also would cut back on tax benefits to big companies (Exxon just reported record earnings for the most recent quarter—$11 billion-something—while everyone else is tanking...how does that work?).

One way to evaluate all the claims, so many of which are partisan in one direction or the other, is to look for sources that you find credible and see what they think. That’s one reason newspaper endorsements can be helpful (as per some of our previous discussions on SmartTalk). But you have to know the newspaper’s history in order to know whether you agree with its position. Here’s a story from the Chicago Tribune that provides an overview of recent newspaper endorsements (and if you click on the Editor&Publisher link (that's a newspaper trade mag), you get the full list of what newspaper has endorsed whom). And click on this site for a handy U.S. map of endorsements.

WAIT! Here's a pretty good one, from CNN I can't seem to find this kind of thing from the NYTimes, but this is what I’d want—comparisons not from some blogger or some partisan whacko (left or right), but assessments from a more credible, neutral source. Of course, some would say that CNN or the NYTimes is no more neutral or fair and balanced than Fox (although I believe they are).

And perhaps the most non-partisan, neutral source might be Factcheck.org from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

I’m afraid there's really no easy way to do this—it’s like studying for an exam. But I do think the comparison table you were sent is not as accurate or dependable as some of these other sources.

Thanks for asking, Jessica. It is a tricky thing to figure out. Did you see Obama’s 30-minute “informercial” the other night? Very impressive, both substantively and in the ways it framed him and the issues. Just like what we’re studying.....

Good luck to all of us in making sense of this.

TP