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Promises, Promises

There must be a site, or sites, somewhere monitoring the fate of Obama?s campaign promises. I?d appreciate pointers to the best of them.

Off the top of my head, and not trying at the moment to source and cite each one, here are a few that come to mind:

1. To accept public financing of his campaign if McCain would.

2. To change the tone of politics by such means as not implying that his opponents are unpatriotic, doing away with doom-predicting scare tactics, etc.

3. To initiate a new era of bi-partisanship.

4. To bring ?transparency? to all important government functions by such means as requiring that all important legislation be posted online at least 48 hours before he signs it.

5. A whole host of policy specifics, such as this promise on his campaign website that ?Barack Obama will restore fiscal discipline to Washington.?

Here?s a pretty good brief summary on the Foreign Policy blog of Obama?s promise progress to date, by Phil Levy an economist with a blue-ribbon resume who is not opposed (in principle or necessarily even in policy) to the idea of a large government ?stimulus? program:

President Obama seems to have dashed many of his major thematic campaign promises in his very first foray into large-scale policy-making. The crafting and selling of the stimulus package have been neither transparent, innovative, calm, nor bipartisan. Much of the package was crafted behind closed doors. The rush to push money out quickly left no time to develop creative new approaches. The president?s dire warnings of doom did little to soothe fears, particularly in those who had doubts about the stimulus package?s efficacy. And hopes for bipartisanship may have been the biggest victim of the endeavor. While President Obama was willing to exchange pleasantries with Republicans, those Republicans were largely excluded from the crafting of the bill and voted overwhelmingly against it.

Here?s a good example of the sort of promise that someone should be (probably is) collecting and keeping in one prominent place, HatTip to Riehl World View via InstaPundit:

... in February of 2008, [Obama] released the statement, ?Small businesses are the backbone of our nation?s economy and we must protect this great resource. It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.?

Since making that statement almost a year ago, President Obama has consistently refused to make good on his campaign promise, and support legislation to stop Fortune 500 firms from hijacking federal contracts designated for America?s nearly 27 million small businesses.

Not only has President Obama refused to propose even a single policy to address the problem, but he actually changed his Web site to remove the appearance that he had ever made the statement, ?It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.?

Full post as published by Discriminations on February 14, 2009 (boomark / email).