Grading PolitiFact (Wisconsin): Jim Sensenbrenner and the emphatic American voter

The issue:

The fact checkers:

James B. Nelson:  writer, researcher
Greg Borowski:  editor


Analysis:

How many times has it happened that PolitiFact created a straw man via paraphrase?  Whatever the number, the tally increases by one with this story on Sensenbrenner:

The quotation:
"the American voters said no--emphatically."

The paraphrase:
Americans have "emphatically" rejected the federal health care reform bill

Anybody detect a difference? Does "American voters" constitute a different set than "Americans"?  Of course it does.  Now, the careless paraphrase does not necessarily de-legitimize the fact check unless the fact check proceeds to check the wrong fact.  In this case we'll see a mixed set of results.

PolitiFact:

"The House of Representatives -- and this representative -- has listened to the American people," Sensenbrenner said. "We had a debate on whether ‘ObamaCare' was the way to go to fix up health care and the American voters said no -- emphatically."

Of course, public opinion can be a moving target. And election mandates can grow over time, especially in the eyes of the winners.

So we decided to take a look at Sensenbrenner’s statement, including at what current polls are showing.

Sensenbrenner's statement lends itself most obviously to his interpretation of election results, with the most recent election results occurring in Nov. 2010.  Therefore, current polls are not particularly useful in fact checking Sensenbrenner even if we stick with polls referring to "likely voters" or those who voted in the relevant elections.

PolitiFact is again off on the wrong foot and an unbalanced fact check results.

PolitiFact considers a recent Rasmussen poll of likely voters.  The poll indicated a slight dip in opposition to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, though a majority (55 percent) still favored repeal and a plurality (40 percent) strongly favored repeal.

PolitiFact's reaction?

On the face of it, 55 percent does not seem "emphatic." Indeed, according to the firm, the percentage strongly favoring repeal has fallen.

Um--according to what objective measure does 55 percent not seem emphatic?  Search definitions for "emphatic" and you won't find much in terms of appeal to majoritarianism.  PolitiFact's reasoning here seems built on nothing.  Emphatic refers to emphasis (note the common root).  Forty percent of likely voters strongly favoring repeal is emphasis ("strongly"), and what PolitiFact spins as evidence against Sensenbrenner ("the percentage strongly favoring repeal has fallen") is, in truth, an evidence supporting Sensenbrenner.  That's because the emphatic percentage was greater than 40 percent when the votes were being cast.  And though that's the number that PolitiFact ought to have investigated, instead we get a set of recent polls not even restricted to likely voters.

It's not a legitimate fact check of Sensenbrenner unless the fact being checked is one Sensenbrenner used.

PoltiFact:

Sensenbrenner said American voters had "emphatically" rejected the federal health reform changes. District residents may have felt that way, though calls to a congressman’s office are hardly scientific -- and Sensenbrenner’s statement cited national opinion on the issue. Also, numerous polls after the November election indicated that voters had one issue foremost in their mind: the economy.

The link connects to a document about a series of AP-GfK polls where some of the data sets apply to likely voters.  But the problem is not with the polling but with the PolitiFact interpretation.  No poll question compared concern over the economy with the repeal of health care reform in terms of importance--and that would be a silly aim for a poll in the first place.  The degree to which likely voters thought the economy was the most important issue is largely irrelevant to the passion attached to the prospect of repealing the health care reform bill.  That's because the health care bill gets in the way of economic recovery in the view of many who oppose it.  The only truly relevant section of the document simply confirms the data from Rasmussen:

The question for this item was "In general, do you support, oppose or neither support nor oppose the health care reforms that were passed by Congress in March?"  The column for "likely voters" has two emphatic groups.  One emphatically supports PPACA to the tune of 19 percent of likely voters surveyed.  The other, in line with Rasmussen, emphatically opposes the bill and represents 41 percent of likely voters.  The emphatically opposed group, in other words, represents a plurality.

Given that a plurality of likely voters near the time of the election emphatically opposed PPACA, and given that emphatic opposition has to do with passion rather than percentage, what type of numbers does Sensenbrenner need to in order to confirm his statement as fact?

When it comes right down to it, Sensenbrenner was offering a subjective judgment based on facts he had observed.  The electorate was demonstrative in opposing health care reform.  Demonstrative behavior accompanies emphatic feelings.  Sensenbrenner's solid there.  In addition, the opposition to health care reform was arguably the one issue that most galvanized opposition to the Democratic Party's handling of its leaderhip role in the government.  Sensenbrenner has all the justification he needs to say the American voter was emphatic in opposing health care reform.

But is there an underlying argument in play?

Yes, Sensebrenner is justifying the Republican move to repeal the PPACA according to the voter passion that, among other things, helped put a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.  PolitiFact appears to argue that if Sensenbrenner does not carry a clear mandate from a supermajority of the American people in general then the push for repeal is not justified.  Or at least not justified by the appeal to an "emphatic" set of voters.

Skipping to the end, PolitiFact rated Sensenbrenner "Barely True."  How silly.

If Sensenbrenner's statement even entered the realm of the objective to the point of warranting a fact check, he receives more than adequate support through poll data and the election results for the House.  House Republicans can certainly justify acting according to the wishes of voters in their districts, and issues where voters were most demonstrative (as with opposition to the health care reform bill) make that justification ridiculously easy and entirely rational.  Even if PolitiFact doesn't like it.

The grades:

James B. Nelson:  F
Greg Borowski:  F

The fact check was ill chosen and ill executed.  It was like nailing Jell-O to a wall using Nerf airplanes.  This was another case of PolitiFact arbitrarily setting a non-specific arbitrary standard and then ruling that the subject mostly failed to meet that standard.