Which Candidate is more truthful? Math to the Rescue.

The website PolitiFact tries to determine the truth and fiction of statements the candidates make. They try to be as unbiased as possible by finding the actual facts associated with the statement, to see if they can find support or contradiction. They grade the statement from Truth through Liar Liar Pants on Fire.

I decided to do some math. I am pretty sure it is right, but not positve, because after all, I am not a math genius, but I can hold my own with things like this.

First some setup. I realize these ratings seem like opinion, which they may be a little bit, but when something is false or true, there is no opinion about it. As of this posting, there are 310 total statements rated from the 4 candidates. The results are either True(3), Mostly True(2), Half True(1), Barely True(-1), Totally False(-2), and Pant on Fire(-3), and the number in the parentheses are the weights I gave to each rating.

So as you can see, of the total number of statements, McCain and Obama are virtually equal with only a 2.25% difference accounting for 7 questions, which turns out to not be significant when comparing the two of them on their trustfulness. So now using the weights that I described above, we get this next table of scores.

The ratio is calculated by the Total Weight score of a candidate in this table, divided by the Total Ratings for that candidate from the first table above. This ratio is not a percentage. Though you could create a prediction number for how many truths they will speak per statement, but I must have missed that day of stats class... What it does show you comparatively, is who is more likely to be telling you the truth at any given point in time. So to simplify, if a candidate scored a 0.0 (zero), they would be equal on the lies and truths, perfectly balanced. Higher score means they are more truthful. Lower score means they lie more. All I can say is THANK GOD none of them are flat out liars.

Now looking at the ratios, frankly it's astounding and a little surprising. Obama is the Winner of Truthyness (thanks for that word GW!), which didn't surprise me. But what did was Palin's level of truth. She is 93% as truthful as Obama, which is pretty close, though in all fairness, she has only been rated 12% of the amount that Obama has been rated. But in the comparisons that matter, pres to pres, vp to vp, and cumulative, lets work this puppy out.

McCain vs Obama: McCain tells the truth only 35% of the time that obama does.

Palin vs Biden: Biden tells the truth only 54% of the time that Palin does.

Team McCain vs Team Obama: The McCain team tells the truth 46% of the time that the Obama team does.

So, the obvious conclusion is this. If you want to vote for a liar, vote McCain.

Corrections welcome.