Center for Responsive Politics Rebuts MyDD's Dishonest Obama Smear

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

Jerome Armstrong, a dishonest purveyor of Obama smears (and the proprietor of the once proud but now pathetic MyDD site), just had his ass kicked by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Someone posted a diary on MyDD correcting the smear and demanding a retraction. It's gotten dozens of recommends, but is not on the recommended list. Hmmmmmm. Here it is:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/2/18/161834/399

Center for Responsive Politics rebuts Jerome's Florida claim Add to Hotlist

by kid oakland, Mon Feb 18, 2008 at 04:18:34 PM EST

This morning Jerome Armstrong made a bold claim on the front page of MyDD. In a piece entitled Obama Spent $1.3 Million, plus change, in Florida, Jerome cited this quote:

Hillary Clinton and Obama each spent about $130,000 in Michigan while Obama spent $1.3 million in Florida--more than any other Democratic candidate and more than eight Republican candidates, who were eligible to win delegates from the state.

and made this claim:

That, from the Center for Responsive Politics. I realize that it's still going to be a fight to make the Democratic Party convention a 50-state event, rather than the 48-state event that some want it to be, but this puts to rest the notion that Obama didn't campaign in Florida.

I wrote to Massie Ritsch at the Center for Responsive Politics this morning to ask him for a clarification of the accuracy of Jerome's claim.

Printed below is what, with his permission, he wrote back to me...

Here's the text of the email Massie Ritsch sent to me regarding Jerome Armstrong's claim published with his permission {Emphasis mine.}:

Paul,

The information from the Center for Responsive Politics that Jerome Armstrong cites comes from our Feb. 5 analysis of the candidates' year-end campaign finance reports; it's not something we posted today. He also conveniently left out this disclaimer from that same item of ours: "Now would be a good time to mention that measuring spending in a state is problematic. The biggest expenses--advertising, for one--are often spent with vendors outside the state, or even just over the state line. These figures measure only what was spent on the ground with local companies and individuals."

To explain further, the expenditures figures Jerome cited are calculated by looking only at the addresses of the vendors that each campaign paid. They are almost certainly not accurate counts of how much was spent in a state. It's possible that Obama hired a vendor based in Florida who did work outside the state for his campaign. For example, maybe the printer of his signs is in Florida. The amount of money spent on signs would appear in the campaign finance reports to have been focused solely on Florida, when, in fact, the signs were used to campaign all over the country.

Bottom line: I wouldn't use state spending totals gleaned from campaign finance reports to saw anything authoritative about a candidate's effort in a particular state. The FEC's requirements for reporting expenditures just don't allow for that sort of precision.

Feel free to share what I've told you with the blogosphere. And thanks for your question.

Massie Ritsch
Center for Responsive Politics

Jerome Armstrong and MyDD, in my view, owe the Obama campaign a retraction of the claim made in that piece. The claim that Obama spent $1.3M campaigning in Florida is unsupported in the material Jerome cites and, further, the bold claim Jerome makes is directly refuted by Massie Ritsch in a "for attribution" email from the Center for Responsive Politics itself.

We in the netroots have a responsibility to accurately report the facts as we know them and to source our arguments properly. Unfortunately, Jerome's claim is not only unsupported by the material he cites; his cite warns explicitly about drawing the very conclusion he makes.

Jerome owes his readers and the Obama campaign a retraction and a correction. (And I think that should include changing the title of that piece and putting a correction within it so that google searches and cites back to that MyDD piece show the corrected record.)

For myself, neither Jerome's post nor Ritsch's willingness to issue a forthright rebuttal came as a particular surprise. That seems to be, for better or for worse, where we are at this primary season. Truth and accuracy, however, matter. Being a straight shooter is important. Being reality-based is part of what sets our netroots movement apart from politics as usual and the status quo.

Thanks for reading.
k/o

[FrenchieCat]

1. That's one of the hazards of the Internets..........

the playing with the truth.

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

2. That's a hazard of reading Jerome Armstrong these days

[Califooyah Operative]

11. bingo. nt

[lapfog_1]

3. But the good news is... you almost always get caught when telling

a fib. Because a lot of information is there just waiting to be found by someone with time on their hands.

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

4. So true!

[rinsd]

5. MyDD, Krugman, Joe Wilson, Rep. McGovern, etc....

When the wall of fallen DU heroes who dared speak ill of Obama is finally erected, that is gonna be a long wall.

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

6. There are honest criticism and dishonest smears

this is a dishonest smear

[rinsd]

7. I thought this bit hit the nail on the head

"Look, I really don't mind at all if Obama wins the nomination, and if he does I would hope he wins big too. What's tiring is the talk that he's different, especially the hyperbolic messianic crap that his supporters shamelessly use to hype Obama. The pretending that he's light and Clinton is dark while his votes are not any different than Clinton's; the pretending that he is a progressive leader in the Senate when he is not; the pretending that he's the oracle of change when he's merely mouthing words that David Axelrod recycled from Deval Patrick's winning MA gubernatorial campaign in 2006; and the pretending that he's some sort of vessel that shares your personal values which if its true means your soul succumbs to good marketing."

Also he has added the disclaimer.

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

8. wrong

"the pretending that he is a progressive leader in the Senate when he is not"

National Journal said he was the most progressive Senator in the Senate. And the attacks over so-called messianic followers are the same type of attacks that were wrongfully addressed at Howard Dean's supporters in 2004.

[rinsd]

9. Yeah for the year of 2007 when he missed nearly 40% of the votes.

The difference between him being the most progressive Senator & Hillary? A single vote.

"And the attacks over so-called messianic followers are the same type of attacks that were wrongfully addressed at Howard Dean's supporters in 2004."

Its a harsh description for blind partisanship I agree.

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

10. So both Hillary and Howard Dean' supporters are crazy

You sound like a Republican.

[rinsd]

12. And you put words in my mouth.

"You sound like a Republican."

Perhaps you are hearing your own echo.