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Fact Checking Recycled Claims in the Governor's Race

politifact.com

Think you've seen every attack possible in TV ads in the Florida governor's race?     

Well, you are probably right.

Even new ads popping up in the week before the election November 4th have the same old talking points -- just in different packages.

That's the conclusion of PolitiFact Florida -- which fact-checked the new ads with old attacks.

A new ad from the Republican Party of Florida claims that "Florida lost a million jobs when Charlie Crist was governor, but Charlie says it wasn’t his fault, says he was helpless. Really? Then why did Florida suffer more job loss and foreclosure than 48 other states?"

"We know job losses were pretty bad under Charlie Crist during the great recession," said Josh Gillin of PolitiFact Florida. "The charge that there were a million job losses, that may be overstating it a little.  We've found that 832,000 jobs were lost during that term. We rated that half true because we have also talked to several economic experts who have said you really can't blame a governor solely for factors that are out of his control."

Meanwhile, a Charlie Crist ad really reaches back  for mud to sling at Governor Rick Scott.

The ad said, " "It was the largest Medicare fraud in U.S. history, and Rick Scott was CEO. Taxpayers and seniors got cheated, but he walked away with millions. And today, under Rick Scott, we’re still paying the price."

"There's nothing new here. That's mostly true," Gillin said. "Scott was CEO of Columbia/HCA, the hospital chain that was raided by the FBI in 1997 for a host of charges. The reason that's only mostly true is that Scott, himself, actually took a golden parachute and was pressured out of his job by the board and never really faced any charges, although there is some evidence that he was investigated."

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