I've Based My Campaign On Lying, I Can't Stop Now

A couple days ago, I looked at Rudy Giuliani's lies in his health care advertising. I wasn't the only one who noticed. The statistics he used were just completely off the mark. And this is not the first instance with Rudy where serial exaggeration has taken place.

When asked about this, the Giuliani campaign basically said, "We're going to keep on lying."

Asked if Mr. Giuliani would continue to repeat the statistic, and if the advertisement would continue to run, [Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Giuliani] responded by e-mail: “Yes. We will.”

As Steve Benen notes, this is happening because Giuliani knows he can get away with it. Fact-checking on policy is simply no longer something the media primarily concerns themselves with. Sure, they'll follow haircut expenses deep into the weeds, and they'll track whether candidates prefer the Yankees or the Red Sox, but on issues that actually affect people's lives, they will likely do a he said/she said article and move on. And Giuliani has calculated that won't make as much of a dent in the public consciousness as his ad with the faulty statistics. To quote Greg Sargent:

Memo to media: Rudy and his campaign think you’re a bunch of chumps. They have nothing but complete contempt for the truth and for everything that purportedly led you all to become journalists. Maybe it’s time to get serious about what this guy is up to.

This should be seen as a gaffe. The Giuliani campaign blatantly lied about the signature domestic policy issue facing the nation. That should be part of the narrative moving forward.

UPDATE: Hey, I found something else Rudy's lying about: his strength in blue states!

As it turns out, a poll released Monday showed Giuliani losing California to Hillary Clinton by a 55%-39% margin. And as for his home state of New York — it's even worse, with Hillary beating Rudy by an astonishing 64%-30% margin in a poll released on Tuesday.

How do you know Rudy's lying, he's moving his lips, blah blah blah.