Election 2012

It may not be uncommon to find fault with Politifact and its "Truth-O-Meter," (see update at bottom), but a recent rating by Politifact-Wisconsin was so far off we had to comment. The following letter was published in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on June 23:

Dear Editor:

PolitiFact recently rated "false" a claim that the Koch brothers gave twice as much to Gov. Scott Walker as Tom Barrett raised. It is PolitiFact that deserves the "false" rating. In rating the claim "false," PolitiFact wrote, "There is no proof of how much Americans for Prosperity, which gets money from the Kochs but also other sources, spent on Walker's behalf."

Just weeks before Wisconsin's June 5 recall election, the banner headline for the Sunday edition of the Wisconsin State Journal declared "Campaign donations: Despite rhetoric, the parties' mountains of money are about even," a puzzling title because all evidence showed Governor Scott Walker with a significant financial advantage over challenger Tom Barrett. Former University of Wisconsin Professor Kathy Barton looked at the numbers used in the analysis and found numerous errors that caused donations to be overstated by an estimated $13 million.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has spent as much as 10 million dollars in Wisconsin in recent months influencing the potential recall of Governor Scott Walker, whose administration has been backed by AFP. Walker's election in 2010 was funded in part by AFP's chairman, David Koch, for example through the Koch Industries PAC and a one million dollar donation to the Republican Governors Association (RGA). AFP has claimed its multi-bus, multi-city tour across the state the week before election day and millions in ads and other expenditures have nothing to do with the election.

One of the many questions being raised about AFP is what, if anything, its massive investment in retaining the status quo is buying.

The Washington, DC-based special interest group -- co-founded and -funded by Mr. Koch, a New York City-based oil billionaire -- has gone all-out in the final week of the recall, spending on ads, rallies, buses, canvassers, and phone banks. The group, a non-profit, keeps repeating its claims to the press that it is simply informing Wisconsin residents about economic issues, not engaging in election activities reserved for politicians, parties, and PACs -- all of which report both their donors/donation amounts and all their campaign expenses to the public for accountability, unlike AFP.

DC-based special interest group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is busing-in out-of-state Tea Partiers and spending millions on advertisements, rallies, and phone banks in the weeks before recall elections for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, and four state senate seats. But the group founded and funded by New York-based oil billionaire David Koch insists its activities have nothing to do with the Wisconsin campaigns or elections.