Summary
Normally we post a "Whoppers" compilation the week before Election Day. This time we've already seen such a large number of twisted facts, misleading claims and outright falsehoods that we are doing that now.

It's not just Sarah Palin's claim about killing the bridge project that she had supported until it became a national laughingstock and Congress turned against it. That's just the whopper that got the attention of many news orgaizations earlier this month. There have been lots of others.

 McCain has made multiple false representations of Obama's tax proposals. Obama has made false claims about McCain's stance on Social Security. Both McCain and Obama have traded some whoppers about their energy policies, about Iraq, and about Iran, and about supporting troops.

For our full sampler of the campaign distortions we've seen so far, please read on to our Analysis section. There we provide summaries and links to extensive articles on each. This is a partial tally. We still have more than five weeks to go before Nov. 4.

Analysis
Both candidates are flinging rather a lot of political poppycock, and some serious deceptions, too. We've gone after them in our regular articles and also in our new feature, The FactCheck Wire. Here are the lowlights – thus far.

McCain: Obama will raise your taxes.
It's a pretty standard Republican theme: "Democrat X favors higher taxes and wasteful spending." But the McCain-Palin campaign has repeatedly pushed this line far beyond what the facts will support. Among the whoppers: that Sen. Barack Obama has voted to raise taxes on families earning as little as $32,000 per year, that Obama wants to tax your electricity and your heating oil, that he has voted for "higher" taxes 94 times, and that he will raise taxes for 23 million small-business owners. Each of these claims is false. Sen. John McCain also claims Obama will raise taxes on your investments, which is untrue for all but those at the top of the income scale.

Obama has not proposed new taxes for electricity or for home heating oil. McCain likes to point to a budget resolution for which Obama voted, which would have raised the marginal tax rate on a single individual earning $41,500 per year or a couple earning $83,000 per year. But that isn't part of Obama's tax plan, which would raise rates (including capital gains and dividend rates) only for couples earning at least $250,000 per year, or singles earning $200,000 or more. Any investments held in Individual Retirement Accounts, 401(k) plans or other tax-deferred retirement accounts would remain just that, tax-deferred. Nor would Obama's plans affect 23 million small-business owners; most, in fact, would see a tax cut. At most, a few hundred thousand of the most affluent business owners would see rates go up. And those 94 votes for "higher" taxes? We count 23 that would not have raised taxes at all, but were merely votes against tax cuts. Seven of them would have lowered taxes for many. As for Obama's actual plan: The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that 81.3 percent of all American workers and families would see a tax cut.

Tax Tally Trickery  July 3
The $32,000 Question  July 8
McCain's Small-Business Bunk  July 14
More Tax Deceptions  August 12
A New Stitch in a Bad Pattern  September 2
There He Goes Again  September 18  

Obama: McCain will cut your Social Security.
Democrats aren't without a classic theme of their own: "Republican Y wants to cut Social Security benefits for our seniors." John Kerry used something like that against George W. Bush in 2004. It wasn't true then and it hasn't gotten any more true in the past four years. But that hasn't stopped Obama from claiming that McCain wants to cut benefits in half.