Campaign-Promises.com

WASHINGTON ‚Äì Over and over, Barack Obama told voters if they stuck with him “we will change this country and change the world.” They did, and now their expectations for him to deliver are firmly planted on his shoulders. Many supporters greeted his victory with euphoria.

Impatient for a new American era and overcome by a black man’s historic ascension to the White House, they took his achievement for their own ‚Äî weeping, dancing in the streets, blaring happy horns into Wednesday morning.

But campaign rhetoric soon collides with the gritty duties of governing, and hard realities stand in Obama’s way.

The youthful president-elect appears to know this. His victory speech emphasized humility far more than his fabled confidence, with remarks heavily leavened by references to the difficulties before the nation.

He declared “change has come to America” and closed with his “yes we can” campaign slogan, but not before speaking of the certainty of setbacks. “The road ahead will be long,” Obama warned. “We may not get there in one year or even one term.”

Atop Obama’s challenge list is the global and domestic turmoil that he inherits. None of it is his own making, but it will shape his presidency before he lifts one finger.

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Two wars in unstable, hostile lands. Other foreign hot spots such as Pakistan and Congo, nuclear standoffs with North Korea and Iran. A warming planet.

Then there are high health care and energy costs, sunken home values, wiped-out retirement and investment accounts. A federal deficit that is exploding as the nation throws money at its economic problems, sure to crimp Obama’s ability to spend his way to solutions.

He also faces challenging political realities.

Obama has a largely liberal voting record and owes a debt to the left wing of the Democratic Party, which mobilized millions on his behalf. These folks embraced his promises to end the Iraq war, move toward universal health care coverage and address harsh terrorist interrogation practices.

But Obama also appealed to the broader electorate as a pragmatist who pledged virtually party-blind government. He will have to decide whether it is better to disappoint the more liberal troops out of the gate or wait until later.

“A lot of people are not going to be happy in the first two years,” said Democratic strategist Joe Trippi.

Matt Bennett of the center-left group Third Way said that Obama is for centrist ideas such as middle-class tax cuts and seems likely to wait on contentious goals such as overhauling the U.S. health care system.

“We do believe him when he says he’s a moderate,” Bennett said. “We think that’s how he’s going to govern.”

Once the changeover happens, those who believed his “change we can believe in” slogan will want things to move quickly.

How might he go about it?

Even after nearly two years in the spotlight, little is understood about the 47-year-old first-term senator’s approach to leadership. His resume: community organizer, eight years as state legislator, and less than four as U.S. senator.

As a lawmaker, he has displayed a knack for working with Republicans on a handful of favorite issues. But he has devoted most of his time in the Senate to running for president. Unlike the past seven presidents, he was never a governor or vice president. And unlike John F. Kennedy, the last senator to move directly to the presidency, Obama has not commanded troops in wartime.

Personally, he’s a bit of an enigma, too.

He did lead his campaign, a huge, nearly billion-dollar operation. Throughout, he showed himself to have a detached, cerebral decision-making style that can sometimes seems out of sync with his natural charisma.

He also showed himself to be a highly disciplined, CEO-style manager. The leak-proof, tightly managed and orderly Obama operation mimics the Bush White House, and flows from “No Drama Obama” himself ‚Äî a man so focused that he didn’t give himself a day off from working out, even the morning after winning the presidency.

In keeping with his measured demeanor, Obama did nothing flashy his first day as president-elect, keeping to breakfast with his family and a thank-you visit to campaign workers.

All that said, he’s got plenty of things in his favor.

First and foremost, he was elected exactly the way he wanted to be — in an electoral landslide. He took not only traditionally Democratic states, but once-solid Republican territory too. That allows him to claim, credibly, a broad mandate for his ideas.

So the Democrats who run Capitol Hill, for all their savvy in the ways of Washington and potential disagreements with their president, might think twice about clashing too aggressively with him. On a more practical level, they will not want to risk missing out during the midterm election cycle two years from now on Obama’s eye-popping fundraising skills.

Further, the much-vaunted technological side of Obama’s campaign means he could appeal directly to voters around recalcitrant lawmakers, using e-mail, text messages, Facebook and other tools.

Said Trippi, “I would not like to be a member of Congress standing in the way of passing his energy bill.”

Still, Obama’s honeymoon with the public ‚Äî both anxious and hopeful ‚Äî could be fragile.

One of the many revelers who spontaneously flocked to the White House after Obama’s win, chanting, screaming and waving signs like, “Why Wait? Evict Bush Now,” summed it up.

“I came down here to make a prayer … that we’ll be able to change the nation and the world,” said Hollis Gentry.

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Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann and Charles Babington contributed to this story.

Popularity: 62% [?]

Popularity: 42% [?]

I watched, jaw-dropped, this week as another Obama association was exposed- this time Khalidi, spokesman for the PLO- that’s the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Not just an association- friends. This man, an absolute anti-Jewish, anti-American, hate-filled person, frequent dinner partner with Obama, a recipient of funds from Obama, and a fundraiser for Obama. Now one must ask himself, what motive would an anti-American, PLO member have in supporting an American candidate? Now imagine if McCain were to have the same connections come to light- he would be ripped to shreds. I don’t care who you’re voting for, but the obvious bias that allows Obama a permanent “get out of jail free” card is stunning. Wake up you guys! You are preparing to elect a man who has shown strong leanings that are anti-Israel, anti-Christian, anti-life, and anti-American. Quick, someone inject these people with a shot of eye-opener! I believe that if we elect this man, we are ensuring an absolute rejection of Israel when the crap hits the fan, not to mention he will surely encourage, possibly require land-for-peace deals. For any of you who appreciate democracy, you can understand the danger this would pose as we would further distance ourselves from our one friend in the middle east and break our promise to support democracy throughout the world. For those of you who believe the Bible, you understand the certain judgment sure to come on this land according to Genesis 12:3. Either way- trouble is brewing. For more information on this subject, I would recommend reading ‘Two Nations Under God’. This will help all understand the importance of supporting Israel.

Popularity: 48% [?]

Barack Obama’s senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week’s election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harbouring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve.

The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of “hope” and “change” are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy.

One senior adviser told The Times that the first few weeks of the transition, immediately after the election, were critical, “so there’s not a vast mood swing from exhilaration and euphoria to despair”.

The aide said that Mr Obama himself was the first to realise that expectations risked being inflated.

In an interview with a Colorado radio station, Mr Obama appeared to be engaged already in expectation lowering. Asked about his goals for the first hundred days, he said he would need more time to tackle such big and costly issues as health care reform, global warming and Iraq. “The first hundred days is going to be important, but it’s probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference,” he said. He has also been reminding crowds in recent days how “hard” it will be to achieve his goals, and that it will take time.

“I won’t stand here and pretend that any of this will be easy – especially now,” Mr Obama told a rally in Sarasota, Florida, yesterday, citing “the cost of this economic crisis, and the cost of the war in Iraq”. Mr Obama’s transition team is headed by John Podesta, a Washington veteran and a former chief-of-staff to Bill Clinton. He has spent months overseeing a virtual Democratic government-in-exile to plan a smooth transition should Mr Obama emerge victorious next week. The plans are so far advanced that an Obama Cabinet has been largely decided upon, with the expectation that most of his senior appointments could be announced shortly after election day.

Yet Mr Obama and his aides are under no illusions about the size of the challenges the Democrat will inherit if he enters the Oval Office. Tom Daschle, the party’s former leader in the US Senate and a strong contender for the post of White House chief-of-staff in an Obama administration, said last month that the winner next week would have only a 50 per cent chance of winning a second term in 2012.

Not only will the next president take office with the country sliding into a potentially long recession — and mired in debt — but the challenges abroad are immense. There is an unfinished war in Iraq, a worsening situation in Afghanistan and an unstable and nuclear-armed Pakistan to contend with. Iran appears intent on acquiring the bomb and there remains the ever-present threat from al-Qaeda and Islamic extremists.

If he wins, Mr Obama will inherit a Democratic-controlled Congress, and might even have the benefit of a 60-seat filibuster-proof “supermajority” in the Senate. Such a scenario would allow him to push through legislation largely unfettered by Republican opposition. Yet it also means that should the country still be mired in recession in three years’ time, voters — who have short memories — will probably blame him and the Democrats on Capitol Hill. Those stakes have led Mr Obama to conclude that while expectations need to be tempered, big things need to be achieved very early in his first term, when he will still have the political capital to achieve some of his most ambitious legislative goals.

Having promised “real” change, the pressure will be on him to deliver. In the Colorado interview, Mr Obama added: “The next president has got to come quickly out of the box.”

The early priorities being lined up if he takes power are a mixture of symbolism and substance. He plans to make a major address in a big Muslim country early in his first term. Having pledged on the campaign trail to close Guantanamo Bay, he is also determined to make early moves to rid America of the controversial prison. Yet what to do with the remaining inmates looms as an intractable problem, as many of their home governments refuse to allow them to return.

Mr Obama’s first legislative goals will be to follow through on his pledge to cut taxes for the middle class and raise them for the wealthiest Americans, and to push through a hugely expensive Bill to provide near-universal health insurance.

Popularity: 33% [?]

Obama’s Infomercial

Popularity: 32% [?]

By CALVIN WOODWARD
Wed Oct 29, 9:18 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.

Obama’s assertion that “I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond” the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by “eliminating programs that don’t work” masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are ‚Äî beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

A sampling of what voters heard in the ad, and what he didn’t tell them:

THE SPIN: “That’s why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.”

THE FACTS: His plan does not lower premiums by $2,500, or any set amount. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four. Many economists are skeptical those savings can be achieved, but even if they are, it’s not a certainty that every dollar would be passed on to consumers in the form of lower premiums.

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THE SPIN: “I also believe every American has a right to affordable health care.”

THE FACTS: That belief should not be confused with a guarantee of health coverage for all. He makes no such promise. Obama hinted as much in the ad when he said about the problem of the uninsured: “I want to start doing something about it.” He would mandate coverage for children but not adults. His program is aimed at making insurance more affordable by offering the choice of government-subsidized coverage similar to that in a plan for federal employees and other steps, including requiring larger employers to share costs of insuring workers.

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THE SPIN: “I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost.”

THE FACTS: Independent analysts say both Obama and Republican John McCain would deepen the deficit. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Obama’s policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years ‚Äî and that analysis accepts the savings he claims from spending cuts. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, whose other findings have been quoted approvingly by the Obama campaign, says: “Both John McCain and Barack Obama have proposed tax plans that would substantially increase the national debt over the next 10 years.” The analysis goes on to say: “Neither candidate’s plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified.”

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THE SPIN: “Here’s what I’ll do. Cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year. Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee that they hire right here in the U.S. over the next two years and eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Help homeowners who are making a good faith effort to pay their mortgages, by freezing foreclosures for 90 days. And just like after 9-11, we’ll provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open. ”

THE FACTS: His proposals ‚Äî the tax cuts, the low-cost loans, the $15 billion a year he promises for alternative energy, and more ‚Äî cost money, and the country could be facing a record $1 trillion deficit next year. Indeed, Obama recently acknowledged ‚Äî although not in his commercial ‚Äî that: “The next president will have to scale back his agenda and some of his proposals.”

Popularity: 24% [?]