Super scramble

SUMMARY: In the final hours before Super Tuesday, the candidates traded charges on everything from the economy to political pork. We examined a few of their claims and found they were largely correct.

This year, “Super Tuesday” is so big that pundits have been seeking more powerful adjectives to describe it.

Super-Duper?

Tsunami?

With 22 primaries/caucuses for the Democrats and 21 for the Republicans, the candidates were scrambling for every delegate, unleashing new charges and recycling a few old ones. We checked several and found:

• Sen. John McCain was correct that Sen. Hillary Clinton has brought lots of political pork to New York, but he dramatically understates the numbers. She has brought more than $2-billion in federal money to the state, far more than the $500-million he mentioned in a campaign speech. We found his point was right, even if his numbers were off, and gave him a

Mostly True.

• Mitt Romney has been trumpeting his business experience and saying that McCain is unqualified to deal with the economy. Romney often quotes McCain as saying the economy is “not his strong suit.” We find that’s an accurate account of McCain’s words and find the Romney attack to be

True.

• The advocacy group Citizens United Political Victory Fund is running a sly ad attacking McCain. At first, it appears to be an attack on Clinton, making several charges about votes and political positions. But then McCain’s face appears, to suggest that McCain is as liberal as Clinton is. We checked the ad’s claim about McCain’s vote on the Bush tax cuts and found it was

Mostly True.

• We also found the group was correct when it said there was talk that McCain might be chosen as John Kerry’s running mate and gave that a

True.