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.
Since we launched PolitiFact Rhode Island June 25, we've powered up the Truth-O-Meter 74 times, fact-checking statements from politicians, party bosses, bloggers, talk radio hosts, interest groups and anonymous chain e-mailers. As we close 2010 after six months with the growing national PolitiFact team, we thought we"d look back on the items that were most popular with our readers, based on our daily Web traffic reports.
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. 3: A statement about Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and his views on gun control. The statement, from Sen.-elect Rob Portman's campaign, led to this story that debunked a decades-old myth.
Throughout the year, we put pundits such as Glenn Beck, Rachel Maddow and Rush Limbaugh to the Truth-O-Meter. Here are our favorite items, which cover the spectrum from True to Pants on Fire.
Gov. Rick Perry, who whupped a U.S. senator and Houston's former mayor in 2010, is the Dallas Morning News' Texan of the Year.
Announcing its choice, the paper noted Perry's penchant for "bold declarations" — something we've also noticed. In honor of Perry's most recent honor, we offer our most-read checks of Perry statements.