Keep track of Obama's promises (895) as he takes office.

[grantcart]

Somebody by the name of Todd Smith has tracked down every single promise made by Obama or his web site and put it onto an easy to use spreadsheet.

Follow the links from Ambinder.
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/keep_track_of_obamas_promises.php

It is very well done and easy to use.

[elocs]

1. Pass.

[grantcart]

3. ??

[elocs]

8. I have no intention of keeping track of every promise Obama has made and if he keeps them.

He has no need to justify to me every time situations or events cause him to alter a promise that he made. How many of us would ever survive such scrutiny?

[T Wolf]

10. Do you intend to keep track of ANY promises/expectations/hopes or are you just going

to go on faith?

I doubt anyone expects Obama to deliver on EVERY campaign pledge. But it is nice to have some criteria for evaluation.

Or don't we do that with Democratic presidents?

[elocs]

17. I can say for sure that I will not be following a list of 895 promises that Obama has made.

I think I will go by faith because faith seems to be a concept that is so lacking here at DU. I have no doubt that for any promise, however small, Obama has made and does not keep he will be called to account for it by the uber-critical here at DU because that is when they are in their glory.

[Juche]

19. I don't agree

It recently came out that in 1996 Obama supported gay marriage. Now in 2009 he opposes them. I doubt that over the last 13 years, when the rest of america became more progressive, Obama became more regressive and intolerant (supporting gay marriage in 1996 was far less mainstream than 2009). He most likely gave up his true beliefs for political expediency. I support Obama, but I am going to do my part to make sure he fulfills his promises.

[elocs]

22. Wow! Democrats who do not agree. Who would have thunk it?

The bottom line is that I much prefer an Obama who may not keep all of his promises to a McCain because he would most likely keep his promises. I don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater and I don't expect Obama to do everything I might want. In the real world politicians cannot and will not keep all of their promises even if they sincerely meant to do so.

[nodramamama]

23. I'm with you

Blind faith is bad. I'll settle for cautious trust. I saved the spreadsheet.

[grantcart]

11. Obama will.

The spreadsheet is done by a supporter of Obama to show that he is acting on his promises.


It will also be a useful foil against those who try to allege that he didn't move on his promises.


Did you take a look at the spreadsheet?

[elocs]

18. Nope, not interested.

Other than here at DU I don't encounter very many people who are attacking Obama for anything.

[qanda]

2. Fantastic!

Thanks for sharing.

[grantcart]

16. welcome

[HughMoran]

4. Scorecard!!

No thanks.

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

5. What promises have you made that you have kept yourself?

I decline...

[grantcart]

12. You may have misinterpreted the intent and you might be pleasently surprised

at the spreadsheet.

It is not intended to give unfair scruitiny but to help supporters keep track of the platform that we ran on and what has been accomplished so far.

I look forward to checking off a few promises every day.


(I didn't run for office and didn't make any promises and have yet to be criticized for not being enthusiastic enough about President Obama.)

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

14. I gotcha.

I don't know why but lately I felt kind of protective because of the early criticize and he hasn't even taken the oath yet.

[nodramamama]

6. Obama" I want you to hold me accountable"

"This leads me to my final point – as President, I will lead a new era of accountability in education. But I don’t just want to hold our teachers accountable. I want you to hold our government accountable. I want you to hold me accountable." http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/amandascott/gG5pB4

Sounds like a great idea to me.

[WonderGrunion]

7. It will be nice to rub this in the FReepers faces

When they start trying to complain that Obama hasn't kept his promises coming up on 2012

[grantcart]

15. exactly

[T Wolf]

9. Great work. There must be an objective method to evaluate his performance beyond

the faith that "everything'll be OK now that Bush is gone."

But, I'll bet that many will not want to hold him and his administration accountable by any objective measure.

[PM Martin]

13. kick!

It will be interesting to see how many of these he will fulfill.
It won't be everyone, but if he stands by half of them, I would call that highly successful.

[JeffreyWilliamson]

20. Coincidental observation...

I downloaded and saved the spreadsheet, thanks for the link.

It doesn't appear to contain any reference to gay rights, not even the promises to enact the Matthew Shepherd Act. Even the Plan for America promised to strengthen hate crimes laws. I searched the Civil Rights section, I looked for references to DADT, ENDA, hate crimes, etc. I then hit CTRL+F and searched the entire worksheet for any references to any of it.

I know this was put together by an outside source. I'm also aware the board is being devoured by the Robinson issue. Just found the omission interesting.

[Thrill]

21. Wow. Someone needs to find a hobby or a girlfriend

[WI_DEM]

24. As long as he fixes the economy, makes a more enlightened/sane foreign policy, gets us out of Iraq

and protects the rights of all people I will be happy.

[Radical Activist]

25. I'll be pushing him to go beyond campaign promises.

After the Change is Coming meetings last month I started to think that single payer is a viable thing to push for that Obama might embrace if there's enough public support for it. He has spoken favorably about it before and he claims that he'll respond to what supporters say at these meetings. They could also be effective groups for organizing against the industry special interests.

It would be nice if people who complain about Obama not being liberal enough took part in that effort but I wonder how many will be too busy telling us how disappointed we'll be in Obama instead of doing something constructive.

[NewJeffCT]

26. Didn't Bill Clinton keep a huge percentage of his promises?

Like 96% or something like that? I think Al Franken had it in one of his books.

I wonder what Bush's percentage was? Let's see, "Uniter, not a divider" was a miss... tax cuts target the middle class was a miss... Clear Skies, nope... healthy forest, nope...