New PolitiFact features to hold governors accountable
By Bill Adair
January 4, 2011
Our state partners are launching features that track campaign promises of new governors.
Our state partners are launching features that track campaign promises of new governors.
We've compiled a database of the Republican leaders' campaign promises and will be tracking and rating them with our new GOP Pledge-O-Meter. It will use the same rating system as our award-winning Obameter.
When Scott Walker was elected Milwaukee County executive in 2002, he put together a notecard that listed a series of promises and encouraged voters to put it on their refrigerator and hold him accountable for them.
The Walk-O-Meter will help you keep track of gubernatorial promises.
Republican Scott Walker made stopping the train to Madison, cutting taxes and creating 250,000 jobs the cornerstone promises of his successful bid for governor.
But he also made dozens of less-noticed pledges of high interest to hunters, gun owners, school parents, teachers, tourists, veterans and even ex-Wisconsinites.
PolitiFact Wisconsin's new feature, the Walk-O-Meter, will track Walker"s progress on 60 promises over his four-year term in office.
Every politician makes dozens of promises throughout a campaign and Lincoln Chafee is no exception.
From the day he announced his candidacy in January, Chafee made promises to voters on issues as diverse as illegal immigration and state pension plans.
But will he keep them?
Today, PolitiFact Rhode Island launches a new feature designed to answer that question.
Not everyone's pants were on fire this year — some worthy statements sent the Truth-O-Meter needle pointing to True.
Statements by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Gov. Rick Perry and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White were among our most-read fact-checks that found the speaker correct.
We checked lots of strange claims in 2010. We're not sure why so many of them involved animals.
The quirkyness of a statement from Rep. Marcy Kaptur caught the eye of the editors at PolitiFact Ohio. They chose one of her comments to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio as the No. 1 PolitiFact Ohio item for 2010.
Her claim: Electric utility FirstEnergy's annual revenues are greater "than the GDP of Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, Iceland, or 15 African nations."
Rick Scott launched his campaign for governor in April with a single promise — to remake state government. Nine months, nearly $75 million and 2.6 million votes later, the enormity of what he meant is coming into focus.
We review our favorite reader comments. One says "Glenn Beck rules, PolitiFact drools." Another says, "If I could marry a website, I would be Mrs. Politifact.com."
After making more than 100 Truth-O-Meter rulings, the editors who rate the items for PolitiFact Ohio looked back over the year and selected the Top 10 for 2010.
Today we offer No. 2: A statement about economically beleaguered Wilmington, Ohio, which radio host Glenn Beck characterized as a real life Bedford Falls.
When Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst referred to Phoenix in June as the world's No. 2 kidnapping capital, it got our attention. Our resulting review proved to be one of our readers' favorite truth tests, though statements by Rick Perry, John Cornyn and even Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert also intrigued readers. Click on for our inaugural Top 10.