Glenn Kessler

We had more or less thought we were done fact checking this election cycle over the weekend, and then we saw the candidates’ "closing arguments" speeches.

So, one more time, here’s a round-up of their factually challenged assertions.

It’s hard to believe this nasty and brutish presidential campaign is coming to an end. Through most of the race President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney were neck and neck when it came to misleading statements. But then in the final months of the campaign, Romney pulled ahead (so to speak) with a series of statements and commercials that stretched the limits. Obama’s bending of the facts also got worse - and was nothing to be proud of. (Among the primary aspirants, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., finished with the worst rating overall of any candidate.)

There were a lot of feisty words and fishy facts in Thursday’s debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. Here are some quick highlights:

"He Barack Obama has offered a reasonable plan of $4 trillion in debt reduction over a decade. For every $2.5 trillion in spending cuts, he raises a dollar in new revenues, 2.5 to 1. And he has tight controls on future spending. That’s the kind of balanced approach proposed by the Simpson-Bowles commission, a bipartisan commission. . . . It passes the arithmetic test."

— Former president Bill Clinton

"President Obama’s plan uses the bipartisan commission’s balanced approach. It reduces the deficit by more than $4 trillion."

— Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)

The repeated claim that Obama’s budget reduces the deficit by $4 trillion is simply not accurate.