Politifact: 2016 GOP Presidential Frontrunners Lie With Impunity
March 21, 2016

As we've noted on C&L, the 2016 Republican primaries have been filled with incredible amounts of lies being told by the candidates. An example of this is when Carly Fiorina tried to get elected by making the case that the obviously doctored and illegal Planned Parenthood videos were real. That didn't work out too well for the ex-HP executive as she now is endorsing Ted Cruz for the nomination.

Politifact made a graph of the break downs of the remaining candidates and how they stack up against theTruth-O-Meter. Hillary and Bernie are in a virtual tie on their overall truthiness, but when we look at the GOP frontrunners, that's where we get a very different story.

Assessing the candidates' overall truthfulness

With primaries completed this week in Florida and Ohio, as well as in Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina, we thought it was a good time to look at the remaining candidates trying to capture their party's nomination for president. In the accompanying chart, you'll see a snapshot of where their Truth-O-Meter scorecards stood as of this week using PolitiFact's system of rating the accuracy of statements made. The candidates are ranked by polling average.

gop_lieometer

While Bernie and Hillary clock in at 70% from being half truths to true, the two Republican frontrunners can't even crack 35% . What that tells us is Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are lying at an incredible pace and though it hasn't hurt them in the Republican primaries, it will be disastrous in a general election.

(h/t Digby)

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