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Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of modern politics is the extent to which dishonesty is rampantly encouraged by all involved. Oh sure, the media loves to condemn dishonesty in principle, but mainstream news outlets almost never calls out a particular candidate or campaign on specific counts. Today, you will essentially never hear a news anchor say "The statement made by the candidate is false." Instead, you will hear that "allegations" of falsehood have been made. In this way, dishonesty (or, more broadly, simply getting the facts wrong) is tolerated and even rewarded by the media, who would rather report on a cat fight than risk getting entangled in one themselves.
But the fault, in the end, lies not at the media's feet, but at our own. After all, we may sneer at the dishonesty of our opponents but almost never question the dishonesty of our own team. The explosive scattershot of criticisms leveled against Sarah Palin, for example, suggest a willingness by the left to immediately believe anything bad they hear about her, and the right's willingness to dismiss anything bad just as quickly. We, on both sides, allow the righteousness of our cause to subvert the integrity of our arguments. More generally, we have a voracious appetite for political gossip and a seemingly diminished curiosity in verification, which is an especially dangerous pairing.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Fortunately, some people are still diligently pursuing the Truth, no matter how much it hurts. Independent fact-checking sites such as Factcheck.org and PolitiFact.com are well-respected, independent arbiters who don't play favorites. For those of us who believe that candidates have a duty to tell us the truth (or at least make sure what they're saying isn't wrong), these fact checkers are inspiring.
Fact checkers also remind us of one of the fundamentals of politics: everybody lies, and everybody gets it wrong. We can quibble about the intent behind a particular statement, but we can often still verify its accuracy. And with this in mind, I put forth that even though no politician is perfect, the degree to which they rely on the truth is a sign of their integrity. With this in mind, I have gone through the archives of PolitiFact's review of politician assertions and would like to present some aggregate data.
The Data
PolitiFact first sorts a politician's assertions into two groups: "statements" and a subset of statements called "attacks." In general, statements relate to any topic while attacks relate to their opponents. They also rate assertions according to a six-point scale ranging from "True" to "Pants on Fire." Because they include these categorical ratings, we can assess the pattern of honesty/accuracy from each candidate.
The data present above stem from 227 statements (114 from Obama and 113 from McCain), including 72 attacks from each candidate directed at the other (30 from Obama and 42 from McCain). These attacks do not include the attacks by surrogates or by independent sources: they either come from the candidates themselves or from messages they have formally approved.
Analysis
Both Obama's statements and attacks (median of "Mostly True") are more accurate than McCain's statements (median of "Half True") or McCain's attacks (median of "Barely True"). In this regard, Obama has relied more heavily on the facts in his campaign than McCain has. In particular, McCain's attacks directed at Obama have relied far less on "True" or "Mostly True" attacks and far more on spin ("Half True" and "Barely True"). Additionally, McCain has made flatly false attacks ("False" and "Pants on Fire") with far greater frequency, about three times as often as Obama. It is notable also that Obama has yet to make any statement in the "Pants on Fire" category, although McCain has done so in multiple instances.
Among the results not shown in the graph are a number of interesting general effects. First, overall attacks by Democrats on Republicans has shown higher accuracy (median of "Half True") than Republican attacks against Democrats (median of "Barely True"), supporting the common intuition that Democrats have campaign more honestly than Republicans in this election cycle, regardless of who is speaking. However, while Democrats were roughly as honest regardless of their targets, Republicans have been more honest when attacking other Republicans (median of "Mostly True"). This largely results from the vicious primary season in which the very real gaps between various Republican candidates and the party platform were well-documented (such as Mitt Romney's moderate policies as governor or Rudy Giuliani's marital history), and openly used in intra-party attacks attacks.
One final observation is that rumors circulated through chain emails have an extremely poor degree of accuracy. Chain letters are most commonly (but not always) conservative, and have been the original source of many of the most absurd attacks in this political season. With a median of "False" and over a quarter of attacks in the "Pants on Fire" category, they unsurprisingly represent the absolute worst available source of facts. I bring this up in no small part because I would like to see Newsvine's comment threads free of copy-pasted chain letter propaganda.
Discussion
The first reaction I expect from McCain's water carriers is that these aggregate data are "proof" that PolitiFact is actually a partisan operation and that their data is a cherry-picked sample. This reflex, sadly, has become automatic and unconditional for many people (on both sides). I encourage them to visit PolitiFact (and Factcheck.org as well) to judge for themselves whether the fact-checking record is incomplete. I don't have high hopes for such partisans, however: once someone chooses news that tells them what they want to hear over news that reviews the evidence, it is very difficult to engage in a reasonable debate with them.
At the same time, supporters of both candidates will quibble over the magnitude or the meaning of various falsehoods. Was it a lie or a mistake? Did he botch a trivial detail or a pillar of presidential policy? What does this lie (vs. that lie) mean about his character or his mindset? These are not questions a quantitative analysis can convince anyone of. However, I do think the pattern of fact and falsehood says a lot about the kind of president a candidate is likely to be. Will he do his research or make things up on the fly? Does he care about getting it right, or just want to do damage? Is he willing to tell us the "big truth" with a little lie, or does he see truth as a more universal value?
I don't expect this analysis to radically change any minds, but I think it does provide some food for thoughts. If nothing else, I think the fact-checkers should be the first stop for more Americans thinking about speeches and commercials they have just seen. Instead of judging speeches on how they make us feel, we must judge them on what is said.
More generally, I believe the reason we let politicians get away with the "Big Lie" (i.e. you can get away with lying if you do so with enough repetition and conviction) is because we let their overall record of honesty escape us. In a given campaign season, a lot of things get said, and we tend to remember the last couple of scandals while letting the rest drift into the background. But if we don't keep track of what candidates have said in the past, it becomes very hard to hold them to their word. We are, in Gore Vidal's words, the "United States of Amnesia," barely keeping a grasp on the promises of yesterday while we scrutinize the gaffes of today. We can change that and, if we are to work towards politics that looks less like the tabloids, we must.
