Fact-checking Ron Paul’s first debate

Thursday night’s presidential debate — the first for the 2012 campaign — had the feel of a Spring Training game. Only half the squad was there and they weren’t throwing very hard.

Conservative activist Herman Cain of Georgia, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Gary Johnson, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas all participated. We’re teaming up with PolitiFact National to fact-check several statements from the debate, including some claims by the gentleman from Texas.

Recently, we reviewed his PolitiFact report card (and you can find all Paul’s Truth-O-Meter ratings here). Today’s fact-checks will be our first since he announced  his plans to form his committee to explore a 2012 presidential run, and we’ll update this story as we finish them.

For our first item, we checked Paul’s claim that “prices are going up” and “unemployment is continuing to go up.” We rated that Half True — prices have been increasing, but until today, when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the unemployment rate edged up to 9 percent, the rate was actually decreasing.