2008 United States Presidential Candidate Rumors and Myths

As the Election season heats up and the mudslinging begins, any ordinary American citizen could be subject to political rumors in ads and word-of-mouth. Those rumors don't even have to be approved by the politicians themselves but can still do damage to an opponent's reputation. Here is a list of rumors about current candidates that were dispelled or clarified by urban legend researchers like those at snopes.com

1. Hillary Clinton refused to meet with the Gold Star Mothers. This rumor started back in the early 2000's but I've seen the traffic on this one as recent as last year. Hillary Clinton apparently refused to meet with the Gold Star Mothers, an organization made up of mothers of soldiers who died in combat. The rumor is that two representatives traveled to DC to meet with Clinton to discuss concerns involving the organization but she refused. She wouldn't even give them the time of day and was the only one (of 100) Senators who would not meet with them, according to the rumor. However, that's not exactly how it went down, and even the Gold Star Mothers apologized for the rumor.

What happened was that two women did indeed travel to meet Senator Clinton to discuss a bill concerning annuities paid out to mothers of combat casualties. But they stopped by without an appointment and Senator Clinton wasn't even in her office. The mothers were upset that she didn't make a follow-up appointment to meet with them, but they didn't start the rumor and thought it was blown out of proportion.

2. John Edwards is a bad neighbor. This turns out to be false all the way through. This rumor started because a real-life neighbor sent a private message to friends and family that got altered to make Edwards look like an aloof neighbor. The untrue letter asserts that Edwards gives people "the finger" when he jogs, didn't care about their lawns being tramped up by the media when he announced his run for the presidency and was basically unsociable. However, several neighbors spoke up on his behalf and even produced a letter he sent out apologizing for any damage the media did to their yards, going so far as to have his personal lawn company repair any damage at no cost to them.

Another rumor attributed to Edwards was that he is responsible for a shortage of flu vaccine because as a trial lawyer he won a case for $5 million and that decimated the flu shot supply. Totally untrue. Yes, he was a trial lawyer but he never once argued a case involving flu shots.

3. Barack Obama is not patriotic. A recent photo captured Barack Obama without his hand over his heart as the National Anthem was playing at an Iowa campaign stop. Meanwhile, in the background you can see Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson with hands over hearts, American flag posted in the background. Apparently Obama also refused to say the pledge and the e-mail points out his middle name (Hussein) as if to further diminish his credibility as an unpatriotic senator.

Did this really happen or was this just an opportune moment for the photographer, i.e. they caught Obama just before he placed his hand over heart? The photo turns out to be real but, according to Obama's spokesperson, it wasn't a symbol of protest. A campaign representative stated the following concerning Obama's hand-over-heart issue:" sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't...in no way was he making some sort of statement, and any suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous". Snopes.com goes onto show several ad campaign commercial stills showing him with hand over heart. Earlier statements by Obama also show that he doesn't want to use patriotic symbolism as a means of political gain or favoritism.

4. Mitt Romney's family is made of Mexican Polygamists. This rumor asserts that Mitt Romney's family tree is full of polygamy, which Romney has publicly denounced (he is a Mormon from Utah). There is some truth to this rumor; however, Romney's supposed Mexican heritage cannot be confirmed.

Romney's father was born in Mexico because Romney's grandfather fled there with his 5 wives. The Romney clan (led by Miles Park Romney) left for Chihuahua in the late 1800's when the Mormon Church issued a ban against polygamy. They did not return to the United States until 1912. Polygamy was an important part of the Mormon life back then, so it wasn't an unusual occurrence to find plural marriage among early Mormons.

5. Rudy Giuliani married his cousin. At first, this seems fairly unbelievable. The rumor is that Giuliani's second wife was actually his second cousin and a woman he'd known since childhood. Giuliani and Regina Peruggi were married for 14 years before it was annulled by the Catholic Church.

This rumor is actually true, but not as bad as some may think. Peruggi was Giuliani's second cousin, which means they had the same great-grandparents but not grandparents. She was also once-removed, which puts an extra generation gap between the two. Even if they were first cousins, it is a biological myth that marrying your first cousin will cause birth defects in children resulting from that marriage.