1.75%
Politifact on President Obama’s campaign promises:
By my math, that is 513 campaign promises. 9 have been broken. On 18, a compromise has been reached. 75 promises have been kept. The rest, some 411, are still in the works. Now, if you are a purist, there can be no compromise ever. And God help you if you break your promise. And for some, all 513 campaign promises should have been completed by now and Obama should just be relaxing during the rest of his term, I guess. I am not happy about the broken promises, and I will criticize and have criticized Obama for those broken pledges. As for the compromises, I am smart and adult enough to realize that I can’t always get all that I want, so I do not necessarily lambaste Obama for compromises. I’m not thrilled with the slow pace of Gitmo, but with the federal purchase of that prison in Illinois, I am encouraged this promise will go from being stalled to being fulfilled shortly. Next, I want EFCA and DADT tackled, not to mention Cap and Trade.
On the whole though, as those above numbers suggest, Obama is doing well on his promises. I can live 1.75% of Obama’s promises being broken. But the purists, and whatever the hell Donviti is, can’t.
[UPDATE]: My math sucks. I missed a step in my calculations, and Christina School Board member John Young was kind enough to correct me. I have edited the post.
Keeping his promise to include Republicans in the process of fixing the country is the big problem. He needs to break that one right away or decide that he wants to be a promise keeping one term President.
You guys are going to march yourselves right into a corner with this tactic. One, like Jason is saying, he is headed for 4 years with this partisan crap.
2, you seem to be giving Obama the benefit of the doubt that he has 8 years to work with and will have a Dem Majority to get things done. Clinton didn’t have one and Obama is pissing away his chance at real change.
Which, I don’t think really exists when we look at what is actually going on with a super majority in both houses.
And your math is flawed.
If you aren’t going to hold him accountable to the 513 yet, then you don’t get to use them in your percentages.
If he compromised then didn’t he break his promise? Tomato or Tomato? Compromise or Broken Promise?
Soooooooo
513 can’t be used. The number you get to use are what has been presented which is actually 112,
9 broken + 18 “compromised” (aka broken) = 27 by my count
112/27 = 24% broken or 1/4 of the time he breaks his promise by “comprimising”
The 411 don’t count DD. They haven’t happened yet.
Why are we assuming he has 8 years is my bigger mystery
Is this the new math? 9/513 = .017543859 which is…
1.7543859% NOT .02%…it is 8.7719 times more promises broken thanyour number would indicate.
That all being mathematically certain. He hasn’t broken very many at all..and has kept better than 8:1 to breaks.
Good stuff so far.
how can you calculate in numbers that haven’t occurred JY
damn, dv’s teabaggin again!
not bad though. need to get rid of the filibuster and you’ll see a more progressive result.
Hahaha, John. You see, that is why I said “my math.” No, obviously I am not a math major and I forgot a step there in my division. It is 1.75%. My point still holds though. But I will edit the math.
Yeah, but VC, Donviti doesn’t understand why we have to get to 60 votes in the Senate to get anything done, and why getting to 60 votes makes legislation necessarily less progressive. It seems to me that he thinks the Republicans will just not filibuster legislation if we either are meaner to them or are nicer to them.
As for getting rid of the filibuster in the short term, it will never happen, for any attempt will be filibustered itself. The best chance at filibuster reform is Harkin’s bill, which will be introduced in January, which would eliminate the filibuster in the Senate after 2017.
hum, i was unaware that it took 60 to change procedural rules.
You are talking about the Nuclear Option. I am talking about formally ending the Filibuster by formally changing the Senate rules. Yes, you can invoke the Nuclear Option and then only a simple majority is necessary, but then you would have to explain to me how the nuclear option was a horrible evil undemocratic idea when Bush and Republicans threatened to do it in 2005 and a good progressive democratic idea now.
DV, fair point, while they are not kept, they are also not broken. SInce they are promises you must include them in the calculation and DISCLAIM that many have various statuses, including compromised, not started, etc… so for example on day one, minute one, he was at 0% broken and 0% kept.
Your point is well taken though.
wasn’t talking about the Nuke Option, my previous comment was stated as fact, not sarcasm.
I didn’t think you were being sarcastic. You can change the rules by a simple majority, rather than 60 votes, but that is called the Nuclear option.
The idea that you could change the Senate rules with only 51 votes was actually quite controversial. IIRC, the way you had to get the parliamentarian to rule that you could do this but the parliamentarian at the time wouldn’t go along. So the process for the GOP was going to be to fire the parliamentarian, appoint a new one who would rule their way and then have Cheney be the 51st vote.
“Obama is pissing away his chance at real change”
Did he ever really have a chance? I mean – honestly…with the crap he inherited he was just going to be a scapegoat/whipping boy no matter what.
Yeah, but VC, Donviti doesn’t understand why we have to get to 60 votes in the Senate to get anything done, and why getting to 60 votes makes legislation necessarily less progressive. It seems to me that he thinks the Republicans will just not filibuster legislation if we either are meaner to them or are nicer to them.
I’d like to see the filibustering actually happen and the “Dem” majority test it out. Have they tried it yet DD? Have we seen the R’s filibuster yet? Seems to me there would be no better chance to prove the party of no is actually the party of no by putting things up to a vote instead of trying to get to 60 before trying.
THEY DON’T EVEN FUCKING TRY TO GET TO 51!!! They don’t try is my point, so how do you know that is what they are going to do.
Let’s look at some of the promises Obama’s kept:
No. 502: Get his daughters a puppy
No. 503: Appoint at least one Republican to the cabinet.
Do promises 502 and 503 impress anyone ?