Top election falsehoods, myths, and talking points

Written by Raphael Schweber-Koren

Published

As the November 7 midterm elections approach, the increasing media coverage has carried with it an onslaught of conservative misinformation. Media Matters for America has compiled some of the more common examples below.

American voters favor Republicans on national security

Many in the media -- such as ABC News political director Mark Halperin, New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and CNN White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux -- have either uncritically reported or asserted that “national security” or “terrorism” are Republican “strengths.” MSNBC host Chris Matthews, meanwhile, has stated that “Republicans know from the polls they got two strengths right now” -- “terrorism” and "[t]axes" -- and then added: "[W]hether the current polls back that up or not."

In fact, recent polling undermines these assertions, indicating that Americans favor Democrats by a significant margin when asked whom they trust more to handle the specific national security-related issue of the war in Iraq. And recent polling is mixed on which party respondents prefer to handle the issue of terrorism.

IRAQ

TERRORISM

Even though Republicans have an edge on handling terrorism in some recent polls, these numbers represent a significant decline in the advantage Republicans had on the terrorism issue prior to the 2002 midterm elections; in late October 2002 (subscription required), a CNN/Gallup poll found a 29-point (52 percent to 23 percent) Republican advantage on the issue of terrorism.

The public favors Republicans on the issues of taxes and fiscal responsibility

Several media figures -- including Halperin, Matthews, and MSNBC chief White House correspondent Norah O'Donnell -- have baselessly asserted that the issue of “taxes” is one of Republicans' current strengths. But as Media Matters has noted, recent polling shows that more Americans trust Democrats than Republicans to handle the issue of taxes. For example, the most recent Pew Research Center for the People and the Press poll on the subject, from October 22, showed a 40 percent-to-32 percent Democratic advantage on the issue. And according to an October 26-27 Newsweek poll, Americans also trust Democrats over Republicans to handle “federal spending and the deficit” by a 16-point margin, 47 percent to 31 percent.

Republicans had the “Contract with America” in 1994 to power their victory, but Democrats in 2006 have no agenda

Media outlets and figures have touted the Republicans' 1994 “Contract with America” as purported proof that the minority party in Congress needs to have a specific agenda in order to win a congressional majority. For example, an October 20 USA Today editorial asserted that one reason it “would be quite an achievement” if the Democrats were to take control of the House and/or the Senate in the upcoming midterm elections is that the Democrats have “failed to put together a platform as effective as the Contract with America was in bringing Republicans to power in 1994.”

But this portrait of the Contract's importance in Republicans' 1994 victory is baseless. In fact, as Media Matters has documented, pre-election, post-election, and reported exit polls from 1994 indicate that only a small percentage of voters said they were influenced by the Contract -- and that most had not even heard of it. As an April 5 Hill article reported: “Twelve years after the Contract With America and the staggering GOP sweep, architects of the storied manifesto concede it played a more mythical than material role in victory.” Cook Political Report publisher Charlie Cook echoed that assessment in his November 1 National Journal.com column:

While [this year] the president is different, the party is different and the issues are different, this is not too dissimilar to 1994 when voters were upset about tax increases, the Clinton health plan and the crime bill (read guns), others were upset about several years of congressional scandals, the House Bank and Post Office, Jim Wright, David Durenberger, the Keating Five and Tony Coelho, to name a few. Republican turnout soared, Democratic vote plummeted, and while some credit the GOP “Contract with America,” that is largely revisionist thinking. At the time voters were angry with President Clinton, Democrats and Congress, and they wanted to send a message. They wanted to throw some people out of office.

Moreover, those who contrast the Democrats' approach with the Contract with America are asserting or suggesting that the Democrats have issued no ideas or agenda in the event of a takeover largely ignoring the proposals that Democrats have advanced. of one or both houses of Congress. Specific examples include NBC's Matt Lauer (here and here) and CNN host Wolf Blitzer.

In fact, as Media Matters has noted, Democrats released both a national security agenda and a domestic policy platform earlier this year. In addition, in early September, Senate Democrats unveiled the "Real Security Act of 2006," which aides called “a detailed homeland security and anti-terrorism package.” Meanwhile, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA) has touted a plan for the first “100 hours” of a Democratically controlled House of Representatives.

Of course, coverage of the Democrats' agenda does not guarantee that the media will report it accurately.

Terrorists want the Democrats to win

Conservative media figures -- including nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, and Roll Call executive editor Morton M. Kondracke -- have repeatedly asserted, without any basis, that violence has increased in Iraq because Al Qaeda or the Iraqi insurgents want Democrats to win. Limbaugh, in particular, declared on his October 19 radio show that the recent increase in insurgent violence in Iraq indicates that “terrorists around the world, particularly those in Iraq, are voting Democrat today.” Similarly, Fox News host Sean Hannity asserted in late August that “some people are saying” that a Democratic victory in the November elections would be a “victory for the terrorists.”

Other examples outside of Fox News and conservative talk radio include MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who, as Media Matters noted, suggested that “the enemies we have around the world” would welcome Democrats regaining control of the House or Senate in November because they could portray it as “Bush hanging by a thread in his own government.” And, in a more extreme example from August 11, CNN Headline News anchor Chuck Roberts called Connecticut Democratic Senate nominee Ned Lamont the "Al Qaeda candidate." Roberts later apologized on-air.

These assertions echo the media's often-repeated claim that Al Qaeda wanted Kerry to prevail in the 2004 presidential election, and specifically that a late October 2004 videotaped message from Osama bin Laden was intended to aid Kerry. However, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, CIA analysts believed that bin Laden's 2004 videotape was an attempt to swing the election in Bush's favor, as Media Matters has noted.

Even if Americans don't approve of the job Bush is doing, they like him personally

Media figures have also persisted in promoting the view that despite President Bush's low job approval ratings, Americans still like him personally. For example, Fox News host Neil Cavuto falsely claimed on October 17 that Bush “polls highly” on “likability.” In fact, as Media Matters documented, recent polling indicates that in addition to his poor job approval ratings, Bush also polls poorly on “likability,” as recent surveys show that more people have negative feelings about Bush, and that more people -- over 50 percent in several major October polls -- give Bush an unfavorable rating. For example, an October 13-16 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed that 52 percent of respondents answered that they held “somewhat negative” or “very negative” feelings toward Bush, while 39 percent felt “very positive” or “somewhat positive.” An October 10-11 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll found that 54 percent of respondents gave Bush an “unfavorable” rating, while 43 percent had a “favorable” opinion of him. An October 6-8 Gallup poll (subscription required) showed a 55-percent “unfavorable” rating for Bush, while 42 percent of respondents gave him a “favorable” rating. Additionally, an October 5-8 CBS News/New York Times poll showed Bush with a rating of 52 percent “not favorable” and 34 percent “favorable.”

By contrast, Matthews, who in November 2005 said that "[e]verybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left -- I mean -- like him personally," appears to have realized in mid-March of 2006 that “Bush is not popular.” “I always thought Bush was more popular than his policies,” Matthews said. “I keep saying it, and I keep being wrong on this. Bush is not popular. I'm amazed when 50 percent of the people don't like him -- just don't like this guy.”

Once a “pro-Bush” state, always a “pro-Bush” state

Another pattern that has emerged in the media is the false characterization of states that Bush won in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections as “pro-Bush” states currently.

For example, on the October 8 broadcast of Fox News Sunday, Fox News political analyst and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol falsely claimed that Missouri, Virginia, Tennessee, and Ohio are “pro-Bush states.” Although Bush carried all four states in 2000 and 2004, as Media Matters noted, Bush currently does not have a positive net job approval rating -- percent approve minus percent disapprove -- in any of those states, according to an October 17 SurveyUSA poll of Bush's job approval rating in each of the 50 states.

Also, on the November 3 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux, reporting on President Bush's “all-out campaign blitz” in the days leading up to the November 7 midterm elections, baselessly claimed that southern and western states to which Bush is traveling constitute “red states” and “friendly territory.”

In fact, according to that poll, Bush has a net positive job approval rating in only four states: Idaho (18 percent), Utah (16 percent), Wyoming (6 percent), and Montana (2 percent). In addition, only in those four states and North Dakota do less than 50 percent of respondents say they disapprove of Bush's job performance. Bush won 29 states in both 2000 and 2004.

Democrats will drown the Bush administration in investigations

Media figures have either adopted or uncritically reported concerns that Democrats, if they win control of the House, will launch endless congressional investigations of the administration that will sink the administration and gridlock the government. But the view that Democrats will use congressional investigations to obstruct and destroy the Bush administration is a Republican talking point, advanced, as Media Matters noted, by Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Democrats, on the other hand, note that Congress has a constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight of the executive branch.

As CNN's congressional correspondent Andrea Koppel reported on the October 30 edition of The Situation Room, “Republicans also warn [that] a Democratic majority could mean endless and frivolous investigations of the Bush administration.” Koppel then asked Pelosi about Democrats having subpoena power, and Pelosi replied that “of course” having a majority means “we'll have subpoena power,” and continued, "[W]e'll have a constitutional responsibility to have checks and balances and oversight. That's what the Congress does."

However, some in the media have adopted the Republican claim -- that Democrats will use investigations to destroy the Bush administration -- as their own. For example, as Media Matters has noted, Matthews, on the April 5 edition of Hardball, asserted that in 2006, Republicans will likely campaign on the claim that if elected, Democrats “are going to try to lynch the president.” This assertion came one day after Matthews asked Democratic strategist Bob Shrum if he could “promise” that, if the Democrats regain control of the House in 2006, “they will not use the subpoena power to go after the president.” A more recent example occurred during the October 18 edition of MSNBC News Live, when MSNBC chief Washington correspondent Norah O'Donnell asked Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) to go “on the record” with a “promise” that Democrats “will not issue tens or hundreds of subpoenas to the White House when it comes to Katrina, Iraq, and a number of issues” that would “make the president's final two years in office a living hell.” O'Donnell also suggested that such oversight would “mean that nothing gets done in Washington.”

Moreover, the Republican “warning” about Democrats and investigations -- once shorn of the straw specter of “endless and frivolous investigations” -- falsely assumes that Americans do not want Congress to conduct significant investigations of the administration. In fact, recent polls indicate that a majority would support Democrats if they began such investigations:

  • An August 30-September 2 CNN poll found that 57 percent of respondents said it would be good if Democrats could conduct official investigations of Bush admin. Forty-one percent said it would be bad.
  • An October 23 Newsweek poll found that “58 percent want investigating government contracts in Iraq to be a top priority” and "[f]ifty-two percent say investigating why we went to war in Iraq should be a top priority," while “25 percent say it should a lower priority.” Only “19 percent say it shouldn't be done.”
  • An October 20-22 USA Today/Gallup poll found that 51 percent supported "[c]onduct[ing] major investigations of the Bush administration," while 47 percent did not, as Media Matters previously noted.

A Democratic takeover of the House would put extreme liberals in leadership positions

Recently, some in the media have also forwarded or adopted Republican efforts to frame the election as a referendum on possible Democratic leaders, specifically Pelosi, the Democrats' presumptive choice for speaker of the House, as extreme and unacceptable. Media accounts, as Media Matters documented, have noted or echoed these baseless attacks. For example, as Media Matters noted, O'Reilly recently asserted that the midterm elections are a choice between Pelosi's “San Francisco values versus Iraq chaos,” and later described this choice as one between “San Francisco values [and] perceived failure overseas.”

And, contrary to the suggestion of ABC News' political newsletter The Note that major news outlets had employed a harsher standard in their 1994 coverage of then-House Republican leader Newt Gingrich, a Media Matters survey of the major media outlets' respective coverage of Gingrich in 1994 and Pelosi in 2006 found no significant disparity in the media's treatment of each. The October 23 edition of The Note predicted that, in the two weeks leading up to the November midterm elections, the "(liberal) Old Media" will "[g]lowingly profile" Pelosi, but “fail to describe her as 'ultra liberal' or 'an extreme liberal,' which would mirror the way Gingrich was painted twelve years ago.”

Moreover, while the media have extensively covered a possible Pelosi speakership, they have not provided a similar level of coverage of what Republican leaders might do if they became speaker. A Media Matters survey of news coverage contained in the Nexis database* found that a possible Pelosi speakership received far more attention from the media than did the possible speakerships of either House Majority Leader John Boehner (OH) or House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (MO).

As with Pelosi, the media have also provided an uncritical forum for Republican attacks on the Democratic representatives who will likely become committee chairs if the Democrats win a majority in the House. As an October 26 Chicago Tribune article reported, “Republicans are issuing dire warnings about a Democratic victory that would ... put key Democrats in charge of committees with power to raise taxes, launch investigations and impeach the president. ... [T]he GOP portrays such Democratic lawmakers as New York's Charles Rangel, Michigan's John Conyers, California's Henry Waxman and Massachusetts' Barney Frank as political villains who would overturn or trim major GOP initiatives.” The article states that the purpose of the attacks is “to boost turnout and sway voters.”

For example, several media outlets have uncritically reported or failed to challenge Republicans' false claim that Rangel -- who would likely chair the House Ways and Means Committee -- had “promise[d] to raise taxes,” as Gingrich put it, if the Democrats take over the House.

But, when CNN host Lou Dobbs asked Koppel to address the reverse side of the argument -- the likely Republican alternatives to the Democrats she discussed -- Koppel baselessly suggested that the comparison worked in the Republicans' favor. Asked by Dobbs if “we could describe all of the current leaders of those committees as conservative, correct?” Koppel replied, “Conservative Republicans, not necessarily. I mean, there are some Republican lawmakers, as we all know, who have more moderate voting records. But certainly,” she added, “the Democrats that they're looking for these chairmanships are all extremely to the left of their party.”

National Journal's Congress Daily recently published a series of articles examining current committee priorities, and how they might change if the Democrats were to gain control of either House.

* Nexis survey consisted of identifying relevant articles from all articles that have at least 5 mentions of the specific leader since September 1, drawn from the following Nexis sources: Major Newspapers; Magazine Stories, Combined; ABC News Transcripts; NBC News; CBS News Transcripts; MSNBC; CNN Transcripts; Fox News Network; and the Associated Press.

Kuo's claims regarding White House's real views of religious conservatives have no precedent

Some in the media have asserted that claims made by David Kuo, the former deputy director of the White House's Faith-based initiatives office, in his new book, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction (Free Press, October 2006), are farfetched and inconsistent with the historical record. The October 13 edition of ABC News' The Note asserted that Kuo was "(re)writ[ing] history," while CNN's Soledad O'Brien, on the October 17 edition of CNN's American Morning, said that Kuo had written a “very political book.” In it, as Media Matters noted, Kuo contends that that the Bush White House has contempt for Christian conservatives, pandering to them for votes but breaking promises on policy and referring to them as “the nuts,” “insane,” and “ridiculous” behind closed doors.

However, as Media Matters documented, contrary to accusations and suggestions of inconsistency and politically convenient story-telling, both John DiIulio, the former director of the faith-based initiatives office, and Kuo have said that the Bush administration wasn't serious about the substance of the faith-based initiatives program -- it was simply a political effort. As DiIulio told journalist Ron Suskind, “There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. ... What you've got is everything -- and I mean everything -- being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.” (Dilulio later apologized, calling his own remarks “groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words and examples.”)

Republicans and Democrats both equally guilty of “dirty tricks”

Several recent media reports have baselessly asserted in recent weeks that Republicans and Democrats equally engage in campaign “tricks” or smears. But to support their assertions, they typically provided only or predominantly examples of Republicans' activities, with scant or no examples of Democrats' actions.

For example, anchor John Seigenthaler Jr. introduced a segment on “dirty tricks” in political campaigns during the October 28 edition of NBC's Nightly News by asserting that “as the election draws near, this turns into the season when dirty tricks can come into play,” but "[n]either Republicans nor Democrats can claim the high ground when it comes to these hardball tactics." But as Media Matters documented, the subsequent report by NBC News senior investigative correspondent Lisa Myers provided no evidence of Democratic “dirty tricks.” Instead, Myers's report focused only on “Republican operative” Allen Raymond, who was convicted for his involvement in a criminal operation to jam state Democratic Party phone lines in New Hampshire on Election Day in 2002. Similarly, on the October 25 broadcast of ABC News' Nightline, co-anchor Terry Moran asserted that “both sides are playing a serious game of hardball” with “mudslinging” attack ads hitting “below the belt.” However, as Media Matters noted, Moran's report provided no examples of Democratic-sponsored attack ads being aired that match the level of distortion and personal attack found in the Republican commercials -- commercials that have garnered wide media attention and been broadly condemned, both for their inaccuracies and their ugly personal attacks.

Other media reports have attempted to fill the evidentiary void by asserting that, despite their lack of evidence of Democratic shenanigans, they're either going to do it (ABC News) or just haven't been caught yet (Slate's John Dickerson).

Also, as Media Matters noted, on the November 1 edition MSNBC's Decision 2006: Battleground America, MSNBC correspondent David Shuster invited viewers to vote on the “nastiest” campaign advertisement among the “the five nastiest ads” culled by Shuster. However, Shuster's focus on “nast[iness]” obscured questions about the advertisements' accuracy. Though Shuster briefly discussed the context of the ads, he lumped accurate and inaccurate advertisements together in his top five. In fact, while Shuster suggested that two of the three Republican advertisements in his list of five contain misleading or baseless claims, he included them with two Democratic advertisements that are based on reported facts.