Barack Obama and Public Financing
NGUYEN: It is a somber vigil in Crandon, Wisconsin. Residents there gathered to remember six people gunned down last October. The victims between 14 and 20-years-old.</s>SHARON PISAREK, VICTIM'S AUNT: It's painful. It needs to come down and something there for a place for people to come and sit and reflect and remember those kids.</s>HOLMES: What she's talking about taking down there is the house where the shootings happened. It was actually torn down this morning.</s>NGUYEN: And the memorial to the victims will be built on that very site. It is expected to be completed in time to mark the first anniversary of the killings. Why don't you take a look at this video coming up because the marks that you see right there, if you look pretty closely but on that arm right there have led to the firing of an Ohio school teacher. John Freshwater, a science teacher, used electrostatic with a device to burn temporary crosses on the arms of several students. It was also criticized for refusing to remove a Bible from his desk and for teaching creationism. His attorney says he will appeal the firing.</s>HOLMES: Well, as if Vegas can't be exciting and scary enough, several people there got a pretty scary ride that they did not expect when they got on to an elevator on the 30th floor of the Paris Hotel Casino and the cables broke. The elevator quickly dropped 15 floors before the emergency brakes kicked in. No one suffered serious injuries and they were just happy they got down to the casino floor quicker.</s>NGUYEN: How frightening down.</s>HOLMES: Come on. It's Vegas. You know they were probably all --</s>NGUYEN: But it's one thing if you're at an amusement park, you know what's going to happen but you're just stepping into an elevator. It has got to be even more difficult to because you can't see what's going on. You just feel yourself dropping.</s>HOLMES: It's Vegas. You expect the unexpected. They went back to the craft tables.</s>NGUYEN: And hopefully won some big money. Well, Barack Obama is among those scheduled to speak at the Mayors' conference this afternoon in Miami. Mayors from all over the country are gathering to talk about the hardships and challenges that they face. Everything from rampant home foreclosures to climate change. The Democratic presidential candidate speaks at 12:30 Eastern.</s>HOLMES: Well, this morning, we have been fact checking some of the recent public statements made by the presidential candidates and that is interesting work. As you can imagine. In the last hour, we talked about Senator John McCain.</s>NGUYEN: OK. So, now let's turn the microscope on Senator Barack Obama. Josh Levs is here with part two of this morning's reality check.</s>LEVS: Yes, only there are two big doozys from him this past week. We had to take a look at today. Let's do this one. Obama announced this week that he would be giving up public financing, here is what he said.</s>SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's not an easy decision. Especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections. But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broke and we've faced opponents who have become masters of this broken system.</s>LEVS: You may have heard this is a reversal from what he said previously he would do about financing in the general election. This behind me for example is an answer to a questionnaire from Midwest Democracy Action Network last fall. It's tiny print on your screen. You won't be able to see it. But the question was if you're nominated for the presidency in 2008 and your opponents agree to forgo private funding, will you participate in presidential public financing system? You will be able to see his answer which is right here. Obama, yes. Now he did go on in this questionnaire to elaborate and he said he would aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to try to preserve a public funding. There you go. Now, let's get to the stuff you can see. This behind me is fact check from "The Washington Post." They have their own fact check site. I want to show you what they're saying today. They're saying it seems pretty clear that there never were serious negotiations between the Obama and McCain campaigns on preserving the public financing system for the general election and that is why, guys, they go with these three Pinocchios that is out of their four Pinocchio scale. So, that's what they're giving him for that today. Now, let's take a look at what politicofact, which is another fact checking site, is saying about this as well. You have this here. We'll bring that up in the full screen. This campaign has "made the previous statements before they realized that Obama could use the internet to raise gobs of cash. They're saying at least this year, that seems to be the game changer when it comes to public financing that he can make a ton of money." So he had to make decisions about what would be best for him in that respect. Obviously, to get the latest on all this, go to cnnpolitics.com. We got fact checks on a regular basis there. As you know, last hour we looked at John McCain, his changed position on oil drilling. Now, we're looking at Barack Obama and his position on public financing and you'll be able to read a lot more about both of them right here at cnnpolitics.com.</s>NGUYEN: So, it's an equal opportunity reality check.</s>LEVS: There you go.</s>HOLMES: And three Pinocchios. What do you have to do to get four Pinocchios?</s>LEVS: They call the four Pinocchios, the whoppers. I think it's if you stand up there and you know, you say, I am a Martian. I mean, you have to go pretty extreme to get all four.</s>NGUYEN: I don't think we'll see that.</s>LEVS: I don't think so.</s>HOLMES: A Martian. Well, he went all the way.</s>NGUYEN: That's a pretty high bar there, Josh.</s>LEVS: What else is a whopper? I don't know. I'm not going to venture a guess.</s>HOLMES: All right. Josh, we appreciate it. We'll see you again soon. Well, the Dow at its lowest level in three months. Another sign of economic tough times.</s>NGUYEN: OK, but don't get too down about it because our guest says you can actually make some serious money in a bad economy and we're going to talk with stocks editor from Barons on-line right after this.