Campaign-Promises.com

Popularity: 25% [?]

If history is any guide, the next president will attempt to follow through on the vast majority of pledges made on the campaign trail.

Saturday, July 19, 2008
by Ashley Johnson

For all of their differences, Barack Obama and John McCain have crafted similar political identities. Both portray themselves as outside the mainstream. Both pledge to reform a broken system, reach across the aisle, and put the nation’s interests ahead of party. And both presumptive presidential nominees have backed up those overarching guarantees with a raft of specific promises.

As voters assess the candidates’ competing visions, they must also weigh how likely either man would be to follow through on his promises. If history is any guide, the answer is “very.”

“There’s this myth that politicians will say anything to get elected, but that generally is not the case,” said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “They take their public statements seriously. And they know they’re going to be held accountable by the media and the opposition.”

Gerald Pomper, a professor emeritus of political science at Rutgers University, agrees: “I think Obama or McCain, if they’re elected, will try to do what they said they were going to do.”

In studying party platforms in presidential elections from 1944 to 1976, Pomper found that presidents converted about 70 percent of their party’s promises into policy. He said that track record is “pretty good,” considering that about half of U.S. marriages end in divorce–a broken vow.

Jeff Fishel, a professor emeritus of government at American University, reached a similar conclusion in his study of presidential performance, published in the 1985 book Presidents & Promises. Fishel tracked campaign pledges from John F. Kennedy through Ronald Reagan and determined that presidents followed through about 66 percent of the time. He gave credit for effort, even when it didn’t translate into signed legislation, as well as for actual achievements. Both Fishel and Pomper distinguish between specific proposals and rhetorical promises, such as “I will uphold American values,” which can’t be judged objectively.

More recently, scholars and reporters have concluded that Bill Clinton made good on more promises than he broke. Certainly, he pushed that message in 1996. By the end of his second term, Clinton had delivered welfare reform, a diverse Cabinet, increased funding for Head Start, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and a balanced budget.

Yet, it’s the broken promises that people often remember. In 1992, Clinton promised “the most ethical administration” in history. His predecessor, George H.W. Bush, famously vowed “No new taxes” in the run-up to the 1988 election, and then raised taxes while in office. Going back further, Franklin D. Roosevelt reneged on his 1932 campaign pledges to maintain a balanced budget and to cut government operations by 25 percent. Herbert Hoover ran in 1928 with the slogan “Vote for prosperity” and predicted “a final triumph over poverty”; the next year, the nation plunged into the Great Depression.

“Public cynicism is a real response to the gap between promises and performance,” said Stephen Wayne, a professor of government at Georgetown University. “Promises have gotten larger and more extensive. And from the point of view of the public, the achievements haven’t been there.”

Obama acknowledged as much even as he launched his candidacy in February 2007 with the promise of sweeping change. “All of us running for president will travel around the country offering 10-point plans and making grand speeches; all of us will trumpet those qualities we believe make us uniquely qualified to lead the country,” he said outside the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill. “But too many times, after the election is over, and the confetti is swept away, all those promises fade from memory, and the lobbyists and the special interests move in, and people turn away, disappointed as before, left to struggle on their own.”

In many cases, however, politicians made promises in good faith but ran into insurmountable obstacles. “The institutional setting is a big complication in fulfilling promises,” West said. “You may have every intention of fulfilling a promise, but if the other party controls Congress it will be very difficult for you to follow through on that.”

Wayne attributed some of the public’s cynicism about political promises to the way that candidates portray themselves. “They campaign as if they could themselves direct that change, when the best they can do is nudge and bargain and facilitate that change,” he said. The “I will” statements that candidates make by the dozen reflect their desire to live up to the electorate’s wish for a strong leader, Wayne said. Voters simultaneously want a president who is larger than life but has the common touch, someone who is a commanding force but flexible. And voters also seem to want candidates who have integrity yet promise more than they can reasonably expect to deliver.

Perhaps attempting to scale back expectations, McCain emphasized the limits on presidential authority in a May speech detailing his plans for his first term. “I am well aware I cannot make any of these changes alone. The powers of the presidency are rightly checked by the other branches of government, and I will not attempt to acquire powers our Founders saw fit to grant Congress,” McCain said.

The next president’s ability to create change will also be determined in part by his personality and staff, but the most significant factor may be one that isn’t yet known. Many of the notorious presidential reversals resulted from unforeseen circumstances. Campaigning in 1940 for a third term, Roosevelt repeatedly pledged, “Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” The U.S. entered World War II immediately after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Likewise, before the 2000 election, candidate George W. Bush insisted that he didn’t intend to use the military for nation building. Then 9/11 happened, and he changed course.

Pomper said that voters recognize the inherent uncertainty about what lies ahead, and they rely on “retrospective voting,” which takes into account how the candidate’s party has performed in the past. “You can’t predict the future, so what you want to know is, what kind of person” is the candidate? Pomper said. “Can I trust him or her in a situation that none of us knows yet?” Pomper added, “John McCain’s problem is that voters are going to be judging [him by] how well Republicans have behaved in the past.”

For Obama, the “change” message that helped him to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the battle for their party’s nomination could hurt him once he’s in office. “Were Obama to be elected,” Wayne said, “expectations of his leadership would be very broad and quite diverse because, as he himself has said, people see him as a blank slate. So I think his problem would be: If he’s elected, how’s he going to meet the expectations that he’s created?”

Obama has attempted to define his brand of change in speeches and in a 64-page plan, “The Blueprint for Change.” To address the housing crisis, he promises to target fraudulent lenders and revise bankruptcy laws. For workers, he pledges to increase the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit, and to renegotiate NAFTA. His plan for the environment rests on a promise to reduce the nation’s oil consumption by at least 35 percent by 2030 and a commitment to implement a 10-year, $150 billion plan to develop green enterprises. In May, Obama told an audience in Michigan, “I’ll be a president who finally keeps the promise that’s made year after year after year by providing domestic automakers with the funding they need to retool their factories and make fuel-efficient and alternative-fuel cars.”

The core Obama commitments are, of course, to provide universal health care and to bring most U.S. troops home from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. In contrast, McCain’s health care plan relies on a tax credit so that individuals can choose among options. On Iraq, he has vowed to “never surrender.” In response to 9/11, McCain has said, “If I have to follow him to the Gates of Hell, I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.” Other prominent McCain promises include stopping the “spending spree in Washington” and vetoing any spending bill that includes earmarks. He has also promised to propose a balanced budget by the end of his first term and aggressively combat global warming.

On the campaign trail, McCain has repeatedly pledged to work with Democrats and include them in his administration. On June 3, the night that Obama reached the number of pledged delegates necessary to secure his party’s nomination, McCain declared in a televised speech, “Both Senator Obama and I promise we will end Washington’s stagnant, unproductive partisanship. But one of us has a record of working to do that. And one of us doesn’t.” Both candidates have also promised to diminish lobbyists’ influence and make transparency and accountability central to their administrations. McCain said he will hold press conferences at least every two weeks, and Obama has pledged “to end the abuse of no-bid contracts.”

The Brookings Institution’s West pointed to taxes as an area where promises tend to reflect a candidate’s larger agenda, because revenue levels have ramifications for health care, education, foreign policy, and everything else involving the government. “It’s not just a tax pledge; it’s a pledge about your general orientation to government,” he said.

Obama has promised tax cuts for the middle class and to eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs abroad, while McCain has said he intends to reduce the corporate tax rate, make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and repeal the alternative minimum tax. In February, at the prodding of George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC’s This Week, McCain made the “No new taxes” pledge that came back to bite the first Bush. That marked a turnaround for the senator from Arizona, who had refused to sign Americans for Tax Reform’s no-new-taxes pledge and bristled when asked to make a similar declaration on Fox News Sunday in April 2007.

Following tradition, McCain and Obama have tailored promises to particular voting blocs. While in Florida, McCain said he would fix the Federal Emergency Management Agency and improve options for homeowners’ insurance. At a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama promised to protect Israel. Both candidates have committed to doing more to include American Indians.

With each promise, wording is everything. A pledge to tackle a topic could be satisfied with a speech. And even the most-specific vows can sometimes go unfulfilled without sparking a public outcry. Take Ronald Reagan, who abandoned his promise to abolish the Education Department. “I don’t think he paid any price for that. It was something a small cluster of people were concerned about,” Fishel said. “Whereas, Lyndon Johnson promised not to send any American boys to foreign wars, and he paid heavily for [Vietnam]. It has to do with the magnitude, the number of people that are affected, when a president reverses course.”

It also has to do with who’s watching. This election, issue-oriented bloggers have joined the news media in monitoring candidates. West considers the inclusion of more voices a positive development. “I think we’ve seen the democratization of scrutiny,” he said. “It used to be the establishment press kept track of promises and performance. Today, there are thousands of citizen-journalists all across America who keep track of what candidates say.” Already, McCain and Obama have been called out for appearing to switch positions for political expediency. A search on YouTube for “McCain” or “Obama” accompanied by the phrase “flip-flops” yields dozens of videos.

In Wayne’s view, “If a presidential candidate doesn’t keep his promises but the times are good, it’s not going to matter. If a presidential candidate keeps his promises but they don’t work, it sure as hell will matter.”

But in the long run, political legacies are defined by results–not a tally of kept or broken pledges. The best presidents have often known when to shift. As California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared recently on This Week, “Flip-flopping is getting a bad rap, because I think it’s great.”

“As long as he’s honest or she’s honest, I think that is a wonderful thing,” he continued. “You can change your mind. I have changed my mind on things, and there is nothing wrong with it.”

For a comprehensive list of Obama and McCain promises, not just the 50 included in this article, go to nationaljournal.com/campaigns.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Presidential candidates pledge a lot, but history says you can ignore most of it.

By Joseph J. Ellis

January 2, 2008

The first time an American president’s policies defied all the promises made during his campaign occurred in 1800. Thomas Jefferson’s platform called for a reduction of federal, especially executive, power; fiscal austerity aimed at reducing the national debt; and strict interpretation of the Constitution. The opportunity to purchase the Louisiana Territory in 1803 threw all of these Jeffersonian principles into the proverbial cocked hat. As it turned out, in order to acquire an empire, one had to become an imperial president, and Jefferson, albeit reluctantly, did just that.

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FOR THE RECORD:
Election promises: In an Op-Ed article Jan. 2, Joseph Ellis wrote that Woodrow Wilson promised to keep the U.S. out of World War I in his 1912 campaign. Wilson promised to continue keeping the nation out of the war in his 1916 campaign. —

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The same paradoxical pattern repeated itself on several notable occasions in the 20th century. Woodrow Wilson promised to keep the United States out of World War I in 1912, but took us to war in 1917. Lyndon Johnson vowed that American boys would never be sent to Vietnam, but reversed himself in 1965. Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” that could not be trusted, then proceeded to negotiate the greatest reduction in nuclear weapons of all time.

Though the 21st century is just getting started, already the paradoxical pattern has continued. George W. Bush campaigned as a “compassionate conservative” in domestic policy and an opponent of any sustained American role as global policeman. But his domestic policies have been designed to appeal to the right-wing base of the Republican Party, and his response to 9/11 has made the United States a preemptive, unilateral world power with boundless global ambitions and responsibilities.

If you look at this pattern squarely, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, as often as not, what presidential candidates say to get elected has absolutely no predictive power about what they will actually do as president. If you push the pattern to its outer limits, it suggests that presidential policies often end up contradicting campaign promises. And if you apply this logic to the current presidential campaigns, voters who regard American withdrawal from Iraq as their highest priority should not vote for any of the three leading Democratic candidates — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards — but instead for Republican John McCain.

There is something perverse about this way of thinking, and the pattern itself, though disarmingly frequent, is not sure-fire through history. But the reasons for its prevalence are rooted in two political realities that go all the way back to Jefferson’s election.

First, campaigns are inherently exercises in propaganda and posturing, the posing of melodramatic choices usually defined by candidates’ contorted exercises against stereotypical versions of the opposition. The real-world choices facing a president seldom fit into these operatic campaign categories. So picking a president is a little like picking a long-distance runner exclusively on the basis of his (or her) talent at running wind sprints.

A corollary is that it is almost impossible to know who can make the transition from candidate to president brilliantly, let alone successfully. Two presidents in the brilliant category, Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, surprised all the experts and pundits of the day, who initially regarded them as superficial ciphers. Roosevelt was dismissed as “a second-rate mind” and Lincoln as “an Illinois hayseed.”

Second, the world has a way of generating unforeseen predicaments that require unrehearsed choices. Even the broad issues that dominate a campaign are seldom synonymous with those a president must face. Jefferson had no way of knowing that Napoleon would impetuously decide to sell all the land from the Mississippi to the Rockies for a pittance. Wilson had no way of knowing that the Germans would decide to resume unrestricted submarine warfare against U.S. shipping. Roosevelt had no way of knowing that the Japanese would bet their future as an Asian power on a surprise attack against the U.S. at Pearl Harbor. And as a candidate, Bush had no way of knowing that Islamic terrorists would fly planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The marathon version of campaigning only exacerbates these disconnects. The central rationale is that candidates will reveal themselves and that voters will come to know how they will conduct themselves if elected. But if history is a guide, this conviction is generally an illusion. The net result is that our votes for president are usually blind bets rather than sensible wagers.

In U.S. history, I can think of just two presidents (there may be others) who were remarkably good at defying the paradoxical pattern: George Washington and James K. Polk.

Washington levitated above all partisan infighting and campaigning because of his stature as the foundingest father of them all, a man who could be trusted with power because of his demonstrated willingness to surrender it. His predictability in that regard alone might have earned him the position of first among equals in the American pantheon. Polk, in the campaign of 1844, promised a reduction of the tariff, resolution of Oregon’s borders and the acquisition of California. He achieved them all, did everything that he said he would do, then stepped down and died three months later, his legacy for consistency secure.

As the primaries and caucuses proceed through Iowa, New Hampshire and on to Nevada and South Carolina, we’d be foolish to believe there was a Washington or even a Polk on the ballot. All that we can responsibly ask of the voters in those states — who are likely to define our choices in the general election — is to decide on a course they think the country should follow, vote accordingly, then say a prayer. Because, as they say, you never know.

Historian Joseph J. Ellis’ latest book is “American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic.”

Popularity: 14% [?]

Author:Robert McMahon

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has vowed “a declaration of independence from the fear bred by our reliance on oil sheiks.” Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) promises vehicle fuel standards of fifty-five miles per gallon (mpg) by 2030. Democrat John Edwards would require power companies to use renewable sources for 25 percent of their energy output by 2025. Presidential candidates from both parties pledge changes to energy policy that fall just short of revolutionary for Americans. But achieving the bipartisan, not to mention bicameral, support for them to pass Congress would be arduous, as the recent experience of the energy bill (WashPost) that President Bush signed into law on December 19 can attest.

That bill, which still requires approval from the House before going to President Bush, mandates improvements in U.S. vehicle fuel efficiency standards from an average of twenty-five mpg to thirty-five mpg by 2020, the first such change since the 1970s. But its passage showed the tough bargaining involved in getting Congress—and Americans—to change their energy habits. Approval came only after Democrats agreed to strip out provisions requiring utilities to set aside 15 percent of their power for renewable sources as well as to restore tax incentives for oil companies. The fuel efficiency standards are the most broadly accepted feature but still involved a bit of a struggle among Democrats. Now a new question arises: Which federal agency will monitor the system? The Environmental Protection Agency? The Transportation Department? As yet, Congress has not decided (AP).

Bush himself launched a call for energy independence nearly two years ago, decrying an “addiction to oil” from the Middle East. He set out a program for expanding alternative fuels such as ethanol, which he reinforced in his last State of the Union message. Legislators from both parties embraced Bush’s proposed ethanol subsidies, and the new energy bill also includes a mandate to add thirty-six billion gallons of ethanol and other biofuels into gasoline by 2022. But this trend has raised concerns about a “reckless” biofuels policy that threatens the world’s food system, says Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson. Ethanol defenders like former Senator Tom Daschle say this threat is overblown, as he writes in this rejoinder to a Foreign Affairs article on how biofuels could starve the poor.

Aside from boosting ethanol, of special importance in states with outsized electoral influence like Iowa, Democrats and Republicans generally diverge on energy policy. Democrats emphasize efficiency and climate-friendly solutions, and Republicans seek to expand domestic energy (IHT) sources. Such different approaches to policy make the goal of energy independence touted by some lawmakers elusive, if not impossible, for the United States. It is one year since a CFR Independent Task Force warned that “the lack of sustained attention to energy issues is undercutting U.S. foreign policy and national security.” Perhaps the intensity of the debate over the latest congressional energy package, the inclusion of fuel efficiency standards, and the resonance of the issue on the campaign trail marks a new policy direction.

Popularity: 10% [?]

By Holly Ramer, Associated Press Writer | June 22, 2007

MANCHESTER, N.H. –Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Friday he will clean up Washington on his first day in office with a government reform package aimed at reducing the growing power of lobbyists.

“It’s time to renew a people’s politics in this country — to ensure that the hopes and concerns of average Americans speak louder in Washington than the hallway whispers of high-priced lobbyists,” he said.

The Illinois senator said he will ban political appointees who leave their jobs during his administration from lobbying the executive branch for the remainder of his time in office. Those who join his administration will not be able to work on regulations or contracts directly related to their former employers for two years.

“When I am president, I will make it absolutely clear that working in an Obama administration is not about serving your former employer, your future employer or your bank account — it’s about serving your country, and that’s what comes first,” he said at New Hampshire Community Technical College.

Under the current administration, Washington lobbyists have turned government “into a game only they can afford to play,” Obama said. “A game played on a field that’s no longer level, but rigged to always favor their own narrow agendas.”

“In our democracy, the price of access and influence should be nothing more than your voice and your vote,” he said. “That should be enough for health care reform. That should be enough for a real energy policy.”

Obama’s plan also calls for ending the abuse of no-bid contracts, restoring objectivity to the executive branch and increasing public access to information.

He promised to post any non-emergency bill on the Internet for five days before signing it to give the public a chance to review and comment. Videos of agency meetings also would be available online, and communications about regulatory policy-making between White House staff and people outside government would be made public.

The themes are similar to policy proposals Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined in April, when she assailed Washington’s “culture of cronyism” and vowed to improve government accountability.

And just as Clinton did in a recent New Hampshire speech, Obama quoted President Teddy Roosevelt, who said, “The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.”

He said American again needs the kind of leadership Roosevelt provided when he broke up the trusts and monopolies that ruled during the Gilded Age.

“We need a president who sees government not as a tool to enrich well-connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American,” he said.

Obama acknowledged that such promises are common but said he has the experience and will to follow through.

“It’s easy to be cynical — to believe that change isn’t possible; that the odds are too great; that this year is bound to be no different from the last. But I also know what I’ve seen and what I’ve done,” he said. “I know that for me, reform isn’t just the rhetoric of a campaign; it’s been a cause of my career.”

Popularity: 14% [?]

By AC Writer

During the weeks and months preceding last November’s midterm Congressional elections, Democrats repeatedly pledged to implement all of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, the panel that investigated how and why the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 had happened, and laid out steps the federal government could take to prevent such a thing from ever happening to Americans again. While some of the panel’s recommendations will be put into effect during the coming legislative sessions, congressional Democratic leaders say they will not implement the measures in full. Brian De Bose reported in the Washington Times that the recommendation to place all intelligence agencies under the Department of Defense is, as Steny H. Hoyer says, “…not on the table.” Hoyer is a Democratic Representative from Maryland and is the Majority Leader in the House of Representatives. Another 9/11 agenda item for Democrats is a plan to pass a legislative bill that would distribute federal funds based on the level of risk for a particular city or geographic region. Under such a plan, major targets like New York City and Washington, D.C. would receive more money than remote places in the Midwest that are at less risk for terrorist attack. The problem with the plan, though, is that it is expected to be defeated in the Senate, where the 100 members of that legislative body closely guard money designated for their respective states. Another recommendation unlikely to be put into effect, according to the Washington Times, is the tasking of one House committee to oversee both intelligence operations and intelligence funding. Democrats want to create a new panel that would assist with congressional oversight of these areas. Failure to follow through on campaign promises concerning homeland security could be problematic for Democrats trying to portray themselves as a party just as strong on national security as the Republicans. According to the Times, Republicans are waiting for Democrats to concede what they have been saying for years: that many of the remaining 9/11 commission recommendations are not practical and should not be implemented. As Representative Peter Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican and the ranking minority member on the intelligence panel says, “I think what Democrats are finding in some of the 9/11 recommendations we didn’t implement, looking closely at them…these are not good ideas.” Information for this article was gathered from “Democrats Backpedal on 9/11 Commission,” by Brian De Bose in the January 6, 2007edition of The Washington Times.

Popularity: 14% [?]