The Obama campaign came out with a new video juxtaposing his acceptance speech with a checklist of real accomplishments during the Obama administration.  Compare his rhetoric with his actions; I think his record is pretty solid especially when you factor in the unprecedented amount of obstruction by the Republican party while Democrats had the majority in 2009 and 2010.  Never before in history had the Senate used the filibuster to block legislation like it did during those two years; 18% of all the votes in the Senate were blocked by the Republicans and that includes basic boring votes (source).

Politifact has compiled over 500 promises made by President Obama and gives their scorecard on him HERE.  In total – Obama has kept his promises or compromised to pass something close to with 51% of his commitments.  Some of these are large, some of them are small.  Compare that to 16% of his promises that were broken.  The rest were either stalled or in the works.  A 51 to 16 ratio in terms of keeping promises versus not is not a bad record.

And Ezra Klein pointed out last year that more often than not – politicians really do keep most of their promises.  He writes HERE:

Bernstein relies on two studies from the 1980s to make his point. In 1984, Michael Krukones published “Promises and Performance: Presidential Campaigns as Policy Predictors” and found that “about 75 percent of the promises made by presidents from Woodrow Wilson through Jimmy Carter were kept.” In 1985, Jeff Fishel published “Presidents and Promises: From Campaign Pledge to Presidential Performance,” which argues “that presidents invariably attempt to carry out their promises; the main reason some pledges are not redeemed is congressional opposition, not presidential flip-flopping.”

And that is why it is important that you listen to what these guys say on the campaign trail …. if Romney says he is going to turn Medicare into a voucher program … he likely will.

As we have shared in “President Obama has been a successful President” – here are 13 major accomplishments of the Obama administration via Kevin Drum:

1. Passed Health Care Reform
2. Passed the Stimulus
3. Passed Wall Street Reform
4. Ended the War in Iraq
5. Eliminated Osama bin laden
6. Turned Around U.S. Auto Industry
7. Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
8. Reversed Bush Torture Policies
9. Kicked Banks Out of Federal Student Loan Program
10. Boosted Fuel Efficiency Standards
11. Passed Mini Stimuli (July 22, 2010; December 17, 2010; December 23, 2011)
12. Created Conditions to Begin Closing Dirtiest Power Plants
13. Achieved New START Treaty

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