In this election it seems the longer the race goes, the more we learn about the candidates. Separation of church and state makes Santorum physically ill, Ron Paul is actually a lot more crazy than originally suspected, Newt Gingrich…well…and Mitt Romney has no sympathy for the working class.

Yes, I know Romney has no compassion for blue collar Americans. His inability to communicate with the plebeians of American society has been a hindrance to the presidential hopeful since 2008, when he tried to be a president the first time. But unlike his voting record, Mitt Romney’s tendency to stick his foot — as well as the foot of one of his many billionaire buddies — so far down his throat it threatens the claim that he is full of crap, are not being challenged in the least. This time he took his foot-in-mouth speech to his homeland of Michigan. A prime example of how Romney is so disassociated from the people of America was evidenced when he gave a speech in Detroit to a crowd of auto-workers.

Romney was already in a bad position. He had opposed the bailout and criticized Obama for giving money to the auto-industry, saying “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” (in a ridiculously self-serving op-ed in which he touted his father’s accomplishments). But he loves American cars. He loves them so much, in fact, that he drives a Ford and a Chevy, and his wife — who does not work — drives “a couple of Cadillacs.” He said that. To Detroit. The city he wanted the government to abandon.

What’s most sad about this isn’t that, in 2008 and since, the Republicans have been yelling about how Obama is an “elitist;” a Yale graduate whose socialist policies and complete lack of good ole Ahmurican values leave him disavowed from the general populace. (Because they have…that was the big one before the “birther” movement.) What’s most sad is that this person is probably going to be the challenger to current President Obama after The Convention. It will be of the greatest disappointment to see Romney debate against Obama, rather than the farcical mess of ingrates he now faces.

Some may say it’s too early to tell. Santorum is giving him a run for his money. And people hate him so much that professionals who do what I’m doing right now, but for an actual paid living, think that if he is the most likely candidate at Convention time, the Republican party will literally beg Jeb Bush or Chris Christie to take the nod. But that party actually discarding the elected delegates is unlikely. Even more unlikely than a candidate —who says that a JFK speech makes him throw up — who is winning swing states.

The other candidates have basically accepted this, as well. You don’t hear too much about Paul and Gingrich now. I could speculate as to why, but let’s just be honest with ourselves: neither ever had a snowball’s chance in hell anyway. The real tell that Romney is the inevitable nominee is that during the Michigan primary, Santorum’s campaign issued a robocall asking Democrats and Independents to go to polling stations to vote for Rick. Seriously. It was essentially “Hello, Democrats. I hear you’re voting for Obama. I probably can’t sway you to my side, considering I’ve said you’re all going to hell. Knowing that, I ask you to vote for me now. Whhhhyyyyyyy, you ask? Because who would you rather face Obama in November? Someone who might be able to beat him, or my woman-hating ass?”

You might think I’m kidding…but I’m not. I’m sure the message was not said in those words, but that was the general intent. If you’ve never heard of cross-party robocalling  before, CNN did a breakdown of the process, motives, consequences and legality of it. Or, you could watch The Ides of March, because is it much more entertaining and factually correct than any 24-hour news network.

The gist of this is, there’s very little that can be done, except maybe nominating Susan Eisenhower. Except she left the party because Sarah Palin was the beginning of the end.

Sigh.

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The election process is in full swing at this point, and it’s fair to say that I pay attention. I have found one of the best tools to sort the political pandering from the honest truth. And I’m feeling nice today, so I’m going to share it with you.

Politifact.com may be the greatest websites known to the internet (with the exception of the UI Memes page). It’s a political fact checking website started by the Tampa Bay Times that takes statements made by politicians, newscasters, and pundits and tells you if they are true or not.

The reason why Politifact is such quality site is that it allows the readers to see if an assertion made by fact-givers is true or complete crap. It’ll rate everything from whether or not Mitt Romney actually drove to Canada with a dog strapped to the roof of the car, to the popular assertion that only 10% of Barack Obama’s cabinet has private sector experience.

Now that it’s campaign season and everyone is touting their accomplishments and flinging dung about the other candidates, it’s important now, more than ever, that statements are verified before being accepted as gospel.

Politifact rates statements on a six-level basis: true, mostly true, half true, mostly false, false-my absolute favorite-and pants on fire. These are fairly straight forward. True means that the statement is a true one, half true means it’s mostly right, but has some flaws, and Pants on fire means the statement is so ridiculous it’s farcical.

What I’m going to do is show you the current candidate’s scores, and compare their percentage of true and false statements. (I’m going to give the candidates a break and count “half true” on the “true” side of the scale, because politics needs more optimism.)

Barack Obama:

True: 244

False:98

Percentage: 71% True, 29% False

Ratio: 2.5 truths to ever falsity

Mitt Romney:

True: 70

False: 33

Percentage: 68% True, 32% False

Ratio: 2.1 truths to every falsity

Rick Santorum:

True: 12

False: 12

Percentage: Split 50%-50%

Ratio: One truth for every falsity

Newt Gingrich:

True: 21

False: 32

Percentage: 40% True, 60% False

Ratio: 1.5 falsities for every truth

Ron Paul

True: 20

False: 12

Percentage: 63% True, 37% False

Ratio: 1.7 truths for every falsity.

If we rank them from least full-of-shit to most, we have: 1. Barack Obama, 2. Mitt Romney, 3. Ron Paul, 4. Rick Santorum, and dead last 5. Newt Gingrich.

Now, it must be noted that, clearly, not every statement each candidate makes has been rated. But this does give you a quick introduction of how truthful a candidate is when making statements.

If this isn’t enough information for you-and even if it is-I encourage you to go to Politifact.com and check out the website’s ratings in more depth.

If you find any stories you like, Tweet them at @TheHookupIC with the hashtag #Politifact.

Featured image from: www.inquisitr.com

All other images from: politifact.com