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Friday, December 10, 2010

Why not just call it fiction instead of news

The AP is out with a story about the impact in 2010 of campaign spending by groups that did not need to disclose their donors. Despite all the noise made about such spending during the campaign, it turns out that only 15% of all political spending fell into this category.Since this was split between Democrats and Republicans, the net benefit to one side or the other was actually quite small. That is the actual "news" which, of course, AP does not mention. Instead, AP makes a big point about how even candidates facing a big onslaught of such spending against them managed to survive. AP identifies Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer and Richard Blumenthal as three such candidates. Strangely, AP does not mention the huge sums of the same type of money that was spent promoting Reid and Boxer. Indeed, Reid got more funds from groups that did not need to name contributors than his Republican opponent Sharron Angle. Best of all, however, is AP's focus on the Connecticut Senate race won by Blumenthal. Here it seems that AP just makes up the facts. The Republican in Connecticut, Linda McMahon did not accept contributions; she self-financed her entire campaign. The AP's comments about the race are just plain wrong.

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