In a Facebook post on Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz pushed back against a "ridiculous" Politifact post which labeled his true claim that the Democratic Party is shrinking as "mostly false."
Politifact's Emma Hinchliffe had to go back 11 years to a now-irrelevant time period to unsuccessfully attempt to refute Cruz's inconvenient truth, citing Gallup poll figures from 2004. Nobody cares about 2004, Emma. What Cruz said is that the party "is shrinking," and it has been for the past 6-7 years, falling from 38 percent to 29 percent as Americans have seen how a Democratic President and his party have governed and behaved when in power.
Here is Cruz's Facebook post (bolds are mine; HT Patterico):
If you want to know why everyone finds lefty journalists so ridiculous, take a look at this particularly silly Politifact. I said "the Democratic Party keeps getting smaller and smaller." Looking to the actual numbers, Politifact is forced to agree that, in the last seven years, the Democrats have lost 11 governorships, 13 U.S. Senate seats, 69 House seats, and an amazing 910 state legislative seats. Visibly frustrated, they turn to national Gallup polls. Democrats in 2008 had 38% support; today it is 29%.
If Politifact were checking actual "facts," that would be the end of the matter. They would rate it something like "True, even though we really hate it." Instead, shaking with frustration, they grasp at straws: but Democrats (with an incumbent president and a massive crony shake-down machine) have raised more money! And here is one poll showing Democrats have (or had) support among Millennials! Of course, neither of those has anything to do with what I said.
Politifact is also, "ahem," peeved I correctly observed the Democratic field is not exactly young and dynamic.
Here is a prediction for their next Politifact: they will "fact" check my first sentence, and conclude it is false because, hey, they found three other lefty journalists who do not think they are ridiculous. ...
We would all be fortunate if Ted Cruz could find the time to moonlight as a media critic. Sadly, that's impossible. Hopefully, the press secretary he employs if he becomes this country's next president will be equally adept.
Hinchliffe's observation about Millennials only confirms the loose truth of the oft-cited bromide: “If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain.” The real question is how strong Millennials' Democratic affiliation is compared to those in the same age group six years ago. She didn't bother to tell us, which proves Cruz's point that she didn't have a point.
Democrats' current alleged 51-35 advantage with Millennials Hinchliffe cited seems historically narrow. Though it's not directly comparable, Barack Obama captured a much higher 66 percent of the under-30 vote in 2008.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
