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Barack Obama says preventive care 'saves money'-No It Does Not

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blueraven2/14/2012 7:17:18 pm PST

So just to get off what the President said for a minute and look at Politifact

What about the Mostly True rating they gave Marco Rubio for his claim that: A majority of Americans are conservatives.

There is no evidence to back up that statement. In fact politifact pretty solidly debunks it.

politifact.com

We have two nits to pick with Rubio’s statement, though.

First, he said a majority of Americans are conservatives. In Gallup’s poll, the number has never crossed the 50 percent threshold. Technically, he would be more accurate if he said a plurality of Americans are conservative.

Second, we should note that while more Americans identify as conservative, that has not redounded to the good fortune of the Republican Party.

More Americans than ever identify as political independents, at 40 percent. Republicans don’t even come in at second — that would be the Democratic Party, claiming the allegiance of 31 percent of Americans. Republicans get third place, with 27 percent claiming the GOP label.

And here’s another wrinkle: When you ask people which party they lean toward, the independents split up so that the country is almost evenly divided. For the year of 2011, Gallup reported that 45 percent of Americans identified as Republicans or leaned that way, while 45 percent identified as Democrats or leaned that way.

Rubio said that the majority of Americans are conservative. A respected ongoing poll from Gallup shows that conservatives are the largest ideological group, but they don’t cross the 50 percent threshold. So we rate his statement Mostly True.

Huh?

Politifact needs to find some consistency in their ratings.