This “scheme” was Greene’s extensive investment in
credit default swaps, or bets against mortgage-backed se- curities, which paid out hundreds of millions of dollars when the housing market collapsed. PolitiFact Florida looked into the ad’s claim about Buffett and found that the “Oracle of Omaha” had referred to derivatives (a type of financial instrument that includes credit default swaps) as “financial weapons of mass destruction” in 2003, several years before Greene ever invested in the swaps. Since the line in the ad suggested Buffett had been speaking specifi- cally about Greene and his investments, PolitiFact rated the claim False. On August 4, Greene’s campaign put out a press release accusing Meek of lying about Buffett’s comments that cited the False rating handed down by “independent and credible” PolitiFact. The release also included a quote from Buffett himself, obtained by the Associated Press, attesting, “I have never spoken about Jeff Greene or any of his trans- actions in any way.” A follow-up ad released by the Meek campaign on August 11 and entitled “All Support” again argued that Greene had profited off the housing meltdown. However, the reference to Buffett was rephrased as follows: “War- ren Buffett called credit default swaps ‘financial weapons of mass destruction.’ And Greene was the first individual to use them.” PolitiFact judged the amended language True. Abe Dyk, Meek’s campaign manager, says the initial ad’s phrasing was a product of the need to be concise within the constraints of a thirty-second ad, not an intention to mislead. He claims that the rephrasing was not a response to criticism by PolitiFact and others, though he acknowl- edges that getting a True rating was to the campaign’s ad- vantage. “You never want an outside validator to say an ad’s inaccurate,” he says. “It could take away not only from the credibility of that specific ad, but also the credibility of other arguments your campaign will make.” Indeed, the follow-up ad trumpets a positive fact check
of part of the first ad by WESH, a local NBC affiliate. “Did Greene become a billionaire betting middle-class families would lose their homes?” asks a television announcer be- fore rendering the judgment: “True.” Meek went on to win the primary by a resounding 26 points.
The Senator Who Wasn’t Was There Locked in a tough re-election fight, Senator Russ Fein- gold, D-Wis., put out an ad called “Garage Door” that har- kened back to his first Senate campaign in 1992, when he stenciled his campaign promises on the garage doors of his Middleton, Wis., home. After some vintage footage of Feingold standing in front of the stenciled doors, the scene cuts to the senator standing in the same position in 2010. “I still live in the same house and I continue to put the people of Wisconsin ahead of any party or corporate interest,” he says. About as positive an ad as one could hope to find, but it still found its critics. On September 22, a blogger for the
conservative National Review Online claimed that Feingold had been “green-screened” into the shot in front of his house, only to retract the allegation in an undated update after being assured by the Feingold campaign that the sena- tor was shot on location. Then, in its September 25 broad- cast, Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me, the NPR weekend comedy news quiz show with an audience of three million, spread the story of the green-screened senator, only to retract it as well the following Monday, September 27. Nonetheless, on his September 28 show, conserva-
tive Milwaukee talk radio host Mark Belling announced, “Feingold is not standing in front of his house in this new ad. They faked it.” Belling suggested that an unnamed video ex- pert backed up the accusation and, when asked by PolitiFact Wisconsin for evidence, presented a list of the ad’s suspicious features, including inconsistent lighting and shadows and the fact that Feingold’s feet are not in the frame. Belling admit- ted, however, that he had no ultimate proof. To establish that Feingold was in fact shot in front of his
house, his campaign produced his schedule the day of the shoot and a photo of Feingold with a crewmember in front of his house. A journalist who witnessed the shoot backed up the campaign’s story. In light of this preponderance of evidence, PolitiFact judged Belling’s accusation both inac- curate and ridiculous and therefore deserving of its most extreme judgment: Pants on Fire.
Photographic proof that Sen. Feingold was indeed at his house for an ad shoot.
“This claim had already been put out there and retracted
or debunked several times, yet it’s still being presented as a factual thing,” says Greg Borowski, editor of PolitiFact Wisconsin. “That helped make it a ridiculous claim.” In response, Belling gave in, posting a retraction (of sorts)
on his website that read, in part, “Russ Feingold’s latest fake campaign ad, unlike his other fake campaign ads, is not a fake. It may be phony and disingenuous, but it’s not a fake.” Feingold, who told PolitiFact that of all the “cheap shots”
he had received in his political career, the allegation that he had not been present for the ad shoot was “the dumbest one of all time,” went on to lose in November by 5 points.
Daniel Weiss is the managing editor of C&E. April 2011 | Campaigns & Elections 25
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