Fact Check: The fuller story in St. Paul By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Sep 4, 11:50 PM ET
John McCain set a new tone for the Republican National Convention Thursday, with speakers abandoning many of the tough words aimed at Barack Obama that had characterized the previous night. But the picture they painted blurred some facts.
Some examples:
MCCAIN: "We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. We lost their trust, when we valued our power over our principles."
THE FACTS: Yes, Obama voted for a 2005 energy bill backed by Bush that included billions in subsidies for oil and natural gas production. McCain opposed the bill on grounds it included unnecessary tax breaks for the oil industry. But Obama has said he supported the legislation because it provided money for renewable energy. Obama did vote for an effort to strip the legislation of the oil and gas industry tax breaks. When that failed, he voted for the overall measure.
MCCAIN: "When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them. Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have that choice and their children will have that opportunity."
THE FACTS: Despite his goal of giving parents choice in the schools their children attend, he is not proposing a federal voucher program that would provide public money for private school tuition. McCain is proposing only to expand the District of Columbia's voucher program. During his 2000 run for the presidency, he did propose a more than $5 billion school voucher plan, but he is not proposing one now. His advisers say President Bush's No Child Left Behind Law is aimed at giving parents more choice, and he would make improvements to that.
JOHN MCCAIN: "Again and again, I've worked with members of both parties to fix problems that need to be fixed. That's how I will govern as president. I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again. I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not."
THE FACTS: It is certainly true that McCain, with two decades in the Senate, has worked in a bipartisan fashion on a number of issues. Legislation that bears his name often carries the name of a Democrat as well. On campaign finance he worked with Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.; on immigration with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.; on climate change with Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. Obama, elected in 2004, has a much slimmer record of accomplishment. He did work with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana to pass legislation to further curtail illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. Unlike McCain, however, Obama did not put himself at odds with his own party leaders by working with Lugar.
SEN. LINDSAY GRAHAM: "Those who predicted failure, voted to cut off funding for our troops, and played politics with our national security will be footnotes in history. There's no doubt about it, we are on the road to victory. ...While Barack Obama expresses appreciation for our troops' service, he refuses to acknowledge their success."
THE FACTS: Obama voted in April of last year for legislation that financed the military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan but included a nonbinding call to pull troops out of Iraq. President Bush vetoed it. Then in May he voted against a subsequent financing bill because the pull-out provision had been removed. The bill, however, passed overwhelmingly. Before his May vote, Obama had voted for every bill that financed the troops since he joined the Senate. On Thursday, campaigning in Lancaster, Pa., Obama conceded that the troop surge had succeeded in reducing violence "beyond our wildest dreams." But, he said the United States government still needs to decide when to "turn over responsibility to the Iraqis for their own country?"
U.S. REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN: (Referring to vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin) "We met a woman who, with the bravery that only the mother of five can summon, said 'thanks but no thanks' to the good ole' boy earmarks."
THE FACTS: Palin has cut back on pork-barrel project requests, but in her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. She did reject plans to build the notorious "Bridge to Nowhere" but only after Congress had cut off funding for it. The bridge was a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport. Palin did leave in place a $27 million federally funded project to build the approach road to the bridge. Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein, a Democrat, said Thursday that Palin first told Ketchikan officials during a campaign stop in 2006 that she supported it. When she became governor, and after the project became the subject of national ridicule, she pulled the state's portion of funding.
Associated Press writers Jim Drinkard and Libby Quaid in Washington contributed to this report.
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