Nothing gets by PolitiFact, not even Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s claim earlier this year that he paid just $1 for a Kohl’s sweater.
Walker, considered by many to be the front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential primary, said in January before an audience in New Hampshire that there was a time in his life when the word “thrift” was not in his vocabulary.
“I went to a Kohl’s department store and I bought something for the price it was marked at,” Walker said, recalling his wife Tonette’s shock that he didn’t understand the concept of bargain hunting when they were newlyweds.
But now he knows, he said.
In fact, Walker told the Granite State audience, he has become so wise about costs that the sweater he was wearing that very evening had just been purchased for “one dollar…with our Kohl’s Cash.”
Walker told this story in January, but PolitiFact was watching, always watching, and the Poynter Institute-owned site eventually got around to checking the GOP favorite’s claim Friday, asking in its story whether Walker really purchased his sweater for only “a buck.”
“Now, we grant this is not the most important topic in politics today. But we decided to fact check it for two reasons,” PolitiFact’s James B. Nelson wrote. “First, we heard from readers from around the country who thought it was an unbelievable story — as in, literally impossible to believe. Second, it goes to what has been a major theme of Walker’s visits to some of the early primary states — that he is just an average guy.”
PolitiFact, a division of the Tampa Bay Times, noted that Walker’s reputation for being a regular Joe contrasts nicely with the more “well heeled” GOP 2016 hopefuls, particularly former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
The fact-checking group reached out to Walker’s people for comment but were stonewalled. Undaunted, Nelson went out and checked on the New Hampshire Kohl’s for himself.
What follows is a detailed investigation of where Walker may have bought the sweater during his visit to New Hampshire — not to mention a handy guide for smart shoppers in the Granite State.
“[T]here is a Kohl’s in Hooksett, about 13 miles from Concord,” Nelson reports. “We called the store, and an employee in menswear said all of the store’s Henley sweaters were mixed with other items on clearance racks.”
But PolitiFact pulled doggedly at the yarn, unraveling the mystery at last:
Long story short, it appears Walker did indeed purchase the sweater for just “a buck,” according to PolitiFact. The site handed Walker a “true” rating for his claim.
