Summary
The Democratic candidates met for the third time, and stretched the facts again:
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said 3 percent of her campaign donations “come from people in the finance and investment world.” That’s correct, but the total is 6 percent when including donations to outside groups supporting her candidacy. Clinton also claimed she had received “more donations from students and teachers than I do from people associated with Wall Street.” Public records contradict that. Her campaign said it was based on internal data but didn’t immediately send that to us. Update, Dec. 20: Clinton’s campaign data, sent to us today, show more donations from students and teachers, including low-dollar donations not reported to the Federal Election Commission. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said that Sen. Bernie Sanders voted against funding research into gun-related injuries and deaths. He did, but that was 19 years ago. Sanders now says he supports such funding. Clinton said that ISIS is “showing videos of Donald Trump … to recruit more radical jihadists.” There’s no evidence of that, though experts have said it’s likely. Clinton said that the Republican presidential candidates “don’t want to raise the minimum wage.” But Rick Santorum has supported an increase. O’Malley said that Clinton told the big banks that “you weren’t responsible for the crash” in 2008. But Clinton said in December 2007 that Wall Street “has played a significant role in the current problems, and in particular in the housing crisis.” Clinton said that “we lose 33,000 people a year already to gun violence.” To put that in context, 33 percent of those deaths were homicides; 63 percent were suicides. O’Malley went too far in accusing Clinton of flip-flopping on federal gun control. She did back off her earlier support for a national gun registry but has consistently supported an assault weapons ban and tightened regulations on sales at gun shows.Detailed analysis is here.
What caught my attention is that no examples of Sanders “stretching the facts” are given.
Make of that what you will. I’m sure that many of us can already anticipate how supporters of each candidate will interpret that particular situation, lol.