As Obama prepared to tour northern Ohio cities by bus on Thursday, NPR's Morning Edition was trying to take apart the Republican challenger to liberal Senator Sherrod Brown. First, correspondent David Welna dismissed 34-year-old GOP state treasurer Josh Mandel as someone "who could easily be mistaken for a teenager."
Then he added that "independent" (read: liberal media elite) fact-checkers think he's throwing false allegations at his liberal opponent, like he was the "deciding vote" for ObamaCare:
WELNA: Mandel says he'll keep reminding voters of Sherrod Brown's vote for the health care law.
MANDEL: Sherrod Brown held in his hands the power to stop this government-run health care act, but instead of stopping it, he cast the deciding vote on the federal government's takeover of health care.
WELNA: The independent fact-checking group PolitiFact has labeled that deciding-vote charge false.
Politifact rated it "false" for several slightly comical reasons: that Brown was so liberal that Obama didn't have to talk him into a Yes vote, and that Brown's name comes up early in the roll call since it starts with a B. Obviously, if it passed the Senate with only the required 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, every vote was essential, if not every vote can be "deciding." But if Brown had tilted right, the bill would not have passed.
NPR also titled the "truth" table on campaign spending:
WELNA: It's not the only questionable claim Mandel's been making. He also says he's the underdog when it comes to campaign spending.
MANDEL: At the end of the day, you know, Sherrod Brown's going to have a lot more money than we're going to have, but this race ain't about money.
WELNA: Not about money? Records provided by the Brown campaign show outside groups backing Mandel have spent nearly five times more than groups backing Brown. Ken Goldstein of Kantar Media Group tracks TV ad spending in the Ohio Senate race.
KEN GOLDSTEIN: You have certainly more money being spent by the Republicans. And most of that is due to the group spending that is being done on Josh Mandel's part.
Once again, can't Mandel be telling the truth if he's merely comparing the Brown campaign to the Mandel campaign?
