Penultimate Big Electoral Map Projection, President Obama's Promises, Keeping Up With the Other Projection Sites

First Election Day Polls Open In: 1 Day, 17 Hours
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +0.2% (up 0.1% from yesterday)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 303, Romney 235 (Obama +13 from yesterday)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 65%, Romney 35% (Romney +2% from yesterday)
Current Popular Vote Betting Odds: Obama 57%, Romney 40%, within 0.5% - 3%

On the national level, we drop the NPR poll (which is now more than a week old), add back the Battleground poll (which is now up and running again) and add the NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll (a new poll issuance.)

Obama leads by 0.2% in my aggregation.  Of the 6 polls released in the past 24 hours (in green), the race is even in 4 of them and Obama has narrow leads in 2.

What will be interesting to see is that when Gallup, which had paused polling after Hurricane Sandy, makes its final release tomorrow (which it has promised), whether it falls in line with the other polls we are seeing or whether they continue to show a much more favorable picture for Mitt Romney than the other polls.

At the state level, Virginia flips over the President Obama today by the very narrowest of margins.  That is a little bit of noise, since it was only +0.1% for Mitt Romney before and is now +0.1% for President Obama.  So basically, in mathematical terms it has gone from being a state that Romney has a 51% chance of carrying to a a state he has a 49% chance of carrying.  It doesn't fundamentally change the dynamics of the race.

Of significant note is the tightening of the race in Pennsylvania, which as I've noted the past couple of days, Mitt Romney is now fighting hard for, with some progress.  It still seems very tough for me to believe that he can close the gap and actually win there, but he's got to do something as many of the other lean states are slipping away.

His attempted path to victory, based on where he is campaigning in the final days would appear to be:
Hold Florida
Take Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio - this would give him 286 electoral votes
Alternatively, if he holds Virginia but losses one of the two big states, he'll have 266 to 268 electoral votes, meaning he will only need 1 other swing state pick-up (Colorado is the most likely) to reach 270.

It is still a very tall order for Romney to win either Pennsylvania or Ohio and Virginia and Florida are no locks.

Think of it this way - in a very optimistic scenario for Romney, let's give him a 90% chance of taking Florida, an 80% chance of taking Virginia, a 50% chance each of taking Pennsylvania and Ohio and a 50% chance of picking up Colorado or something similar.  His odds are significantly lower to do all of these things, in my opinion, but bear with me to understand the math - Obama still wins more than half the time in our trial heats.

If you use more realistic odds - say Romney is 75% to take Florida, 50% to take Virginia, 30% each to take Ohio and Pennsylvania and 50% to take Colorado or a similar state.  This yields a result in trial heat testing of Obama winning 88% of the time, Romney winning 12% of the time, which I think is about where we are.

Having said all that, the Intrade betting odds are closer than what I am seeing, so you might choose to believe the market rather than me.  But I still project Barack Obama to win a 2nd term, in all likelihood.

I'm expecting an insane amount of polling to release tomorrow, as most of the firms release their last numbers before the election, so we may see some shifts - stay tuned for that.

Assessing President Obama's Campaign Promises
On the campaign trail in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama made a lot of promises about what he would do if he got to office.  Most Presidential candidates do.

The difference between the 2008 cycle and previous cycles is the level of documentation that has been made of those promises and the great work done by the folks at politifact.com and the St. Petersburg Times to track his progress against those promises.

In the first few years of his Presidency, I wrote fairly frequently about the topic of the President and how his performance tracked to what he promised on the campaign trail.  As the 2012 campaign has worn on, I've written significantly less on the topic as this space has largely been dedicated to documenting and analyzing the dynamics of the election battle.

But, as we approach the election, I think in the interest of making an informed decision in the ballot box, it is worth another look at the President's promises and what he has done.

First, my usual caveats.  This is about the President doing what he said he was going to do, NOT the wisdom of those choices.  For instance, one of the promises that the President has kept is to expand eligibility for Medicaid and SCHIP, two health care programs that provide support to lower income people.  You may think this is a bad idea - that the expanse of entitlement programs is a big part of our deficit problem and the President was ill-advised to do so.  But he said he would do it on the campaign trail and he did it and that's all we are measuring here.

Similarly, you may feel that some of the promises that he broke were bad ideas and that he was right to reverse course.  For instance, one of the President's broken promises was to close the military prison in Guantanamo Bay.  You may feel that Gitmo should stay open and that reversing course was prudent.  But he said he would close it on the 2008 campaign trail and he did not, so it counts against him in this measure.

So, with that out of the way, how do the President's actions stand up to his words?

Decently, but not amazingly well.

Politifact documented 508 promises that the President made.  Of those, 2 are not measurable as the circumstances have not allowed for testing whether the President would keep his promises or not.

Of the 506 that are measurable, he has fulfilled 193 more or less in full, partially fulfilled or compromises on 79 and outright broken 88.  The remaining 146 either are stalled in congress or still being worked on, but action has not been decisive enough to categorize them as either fulfilled, compromised or broken.

If you look at the 504 ratable promises as the President's commitment as to what he would get done and give him a 100% score for the ones that he has kept and a 50% score for the partially fulfilled or compromised promises, then he has done 46% of what he said he would.  While there are not comparable benchmarks to previous Presidents as the level of documentation is not there for previous Presidencies to compare, I said at the time of his inauguration that if he could fulfill 50% of what he promised to do, he would be doing well.

Taken another way, if you assume the 146 where there is not decisive action to be out of the mix - the President, after all, did not say he would do everything in his first term, then he rates 65%.  Keep in mind that promises that were explicitly time-bound on the campaign trail are counted as broken.  65% is a solid, but not overwhelming score.

But those are just the raw numbers.  You must also look at the nature of the promises kept and broken, since certainly not all promises are created equal.

There are too many to list here (although I encourage you to go to politifact and read the complete list), but here are the major ones by category:
Kept:
* Expand Medicaid and SCHIP
* Establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights
* Extend the Bush Tax Cuts for lower incomes
* Close the doughnut hole in Medicare prescription drug benefits
* A whole host of promises related to universal healthcare
* A whole host of promises related to better funding and supporting the Veterans Administration
* A host of promises related to withdrawing from Iraq
* Increasing troop presence in Afghanistan
* Expand the START treaty
* A host of promises related to educational reform
* Repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell
* Sign the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act
* Seeking and killing Osama Bin Laden

Broken:
* Close Gitmo
* End Bush tax cuts for upper incomes
* Reform prescription drug industry, including allow reimported drugs
* Toughen rules for former lobbyists in his administration
* Increase the minimum wage to $9.50/hr
* Reduce earmarks
* Submit a comprehensive immigration bill in his first year in office
* Cut the deficit in half in his first term
* Pass healthcare reform with bipartisan support

You can draw your own conclusions on what is reasonable to ding the President for and what is out of his control on the broken promises.  You can also draw your own conclusions about whether the promises that the President kept were prudent approaches to the problems our nation faces.

But, in large measure, the promises that are broken by the President (the deficit being a MAJOR exception) are issues where he has either moved to the right of how he campaigned or failed to secure congressional support for his agenda.  A lack of leadership, perhaps, but I certainly don't see a bait-and-switch in his policies.

We pretty much got what you would have expected from the President in his first term if you'd paid attention to his campaign rhetoric in 2008.  The question going into the voting booth is if that is something that you support or not.

If you like this site, tell your friends.  And please vote Tuesday, if you have not already voted.

President Obama's Scorecard - After 3 Years, The End of Stimulus

President Obama - Center-Left Leader

Lost in the fervor of the primary season is the quiet passing of the 3 year anniversary of President Barack Obama's inauguration.

There is a lot of rhetoric on both sides around the President's performance.  Is he a European Socialist?  A moderate pragmatist?  A shrinking violet or a badass Commander-in-Chief who kills terrorists?  An ineffective President or a victim of Republican obstructionism?

I've made no secret over the past few years about how valuable fact-checking sites like Politifact are.  It's been a long time since we've reviewed the President's 2008 campaign promises, but his 3 year anniversary seems like as good a time as any.

Whether what the President stands for is a debate for those of us of varying political philosophies to have.  But whether he did what he said he would do is more or less fact.

Politifact kept meticulous track of the President's promises and were able to document 508 specific things that then-candidate Barack Obama said he would do if elected to office.  Of those 508, 2 were specific to how he would respond to a national disaster, so they can only be evaluated if one occurs, therefore we will focus on the other 506 promises.

Of those 506, Politifact rates him as follows:
162 Promises Kept
50 Compromise (partially implemented based on a deal he cut with Republicans or others)
56 Broken (he had a chance to execute them but did not)
64 Stalled (the President still advocates for this position but has been unable to secure action on it)
172 "In The Works" (basically have not been acted on, but he seems to still advocate for)

If you give the President a 1 point for Promises Kept and half a point for Compromises, he's effectively implemented 190 out of 506 things he said or 38% of his promises.

There is a fair argument to be made to exclude the "In The Works" promises from the calculation.  President Obama never said he would do everything in the first 3 years and it is fair to say that there are some issues he simply hasn't gotten to yet.

Excluding those 172, he gets 190 points out of a possible 334 or a completion rate of 57%.

Since "Stalled" promises for the most part represent things that Congress has blocked the President's preferred path, it would also be fair to say that of the things he has been able to influence, he gets 190 points out of a possible 270 or 70%.

So, basically, on the things the President has been able to control to some extent, he has been 70% consistent with what he's said on the campaign trail.

Frankly, that's not a bad record.  By and large, we got what we were promised from President Obama. 

Of the promises that he has broken, it is instructive to see that in most cases, they are basically he leaned further right than what he campaigned on.  Some of the key promises he broke include:
* Increasing taxes on high income earners including repealing the Bush Tax cuts
* Signing card check
* Greater worker rights including guaranteed sick days and expanded FMLA
* Closing GITMO / trying terrorists in civilian courts
* Increasing the minimum wage to $9.50/hour
* Implementing Cap and Trade
* Introducing comprehensive immigration reform

So, ironically, the left has a whole lot more to complain about than the right.  The things President Obama has done have largely either been in line with how he campaigned, or meaningfully to the right of how he campaigned. 

You will hear some pretty crazy rhetoric about President Obama in the coming season.  But President Obama has not acted as a liberal, he's operated as a left-center progressive, far more similar to Bill Clinton than Jimmy Carter.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - Did It Work?
Not surprisingly, all of the most significant legislation that President Obama has signed into law over his term occurred during the first two years of his term, when Democrats at least nominally controlled both houses of Congress.  Clearly, in my mind, the most significant pieces of legislation were:
* The American Recovery and Reinvesment Act (aka The Stimulus)
* The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)
* Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

Of these, the stimulus package really set economic policy for the first three years of his administration.  As of today, the $741B of the $799B in tax cuts and spending set out in the bill has been spent or 93%.  So, the effect of the bill is almost complete.

Republicans will rightly complain that the President projected that unemployment would remain under 8.5% with the bill, a marker that it didn't even come close to meeting.  The President will argue that things would have been far worse without the bill.

The problem is, we don't have an alternative universe under which to gauge how things would have been different without the bill.  Definitely aspects of the tax incentives clearly worked, such as Cash for Clunkers revitalizing the auto industry or clean energy tax credits creating a boom in the installation of energy efficient windows and solar panels.  But the large quantities of transfer payments to states and enhanced entitlement spending are a lot more grey.  Did they simply shift the problems of states and individuals to problems of federal debt?  And how will we ultimately pay for all of this?

These are all issues to debate in the coming election.  It would help in that debate if either side had a real opinion about how to rein in the deficit.  President Obama seems content to talk about letting tax cuts expire while continuing to extend them.  Republicans seem to want even lower taxes without a real plan to cut the kind of spending that would be required.

Third party candidate, anyone?

Grading Year 1 of the Obama Administration

The time has come for my rundown of the first year of the Obama Administration. Yes, I realize we are technically still a week short of a year from the Tuesday on which Barack Obama became the 43rd man to assume the Presidency (yes, he is commonly referred to as the "44th President", but that's because Grover Cleveland is counted twice due to his split terms, interesting piece of political trivia for a cocktail party sometime.) But, let's face it, there is very little that is going to change the essential ratings that we will look at. No legislation is going to be passed between now and then as the Senate is not in session (other than a brief Pro Forma session on the 19th). The poll numbers aren't likely to move significantly, unless unemployment miraculously halves o the President denounces his citizenship. The accounting on year 1 is largely in.

We'll look at year 1 from three perspectives:
#1 Political Priorities -- my assessment of the Obama Administration's effectiveness in implementing the key priorities that the President himself laid out for year 1.
#2 Court of Public Opinion -- we'll compare the President's numbers to both an absolute scale and a comparative scale to other Post-World War 2 President's
#3 Presidential Promise-Keeping -- we'll consult with our old friends at Politifact.com to see how closely what the President has done has matched his words from the campaign trail.

So, let's get started.

Political Priorities
The President laid out three clear priorities for year one of his administration, through an early speech to a joint session of congress. Let's grade them.

#1 The Economy -- Stabilize the Financial System, Contain Unemployment and Build a Platform for Economic Growth
My Grade: B
Despite poll numbers that don't yet reflect his success (more on that later), the President has actually done a number of important things towards this end. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was landmark legislation, signed into law early in his administration, the largest investment of public funds in economic recovery since FDR. The early provisions of this bill, which stabilized funding for state governments and provided key tax incentives that have stabilized the auto and home industries, were critical in preventing a deeper depression. The bulk of the spending, which is yet to take place, is of the more traditional infrastructure variety, designed to generate long-term efficiency gains (a better maintained infrastructure is a catalyst to a more efficient economy) as well as provide some job growth along the way.

The administration's actions on the auto industry got off to a slow start, with, unfortunately some more money down the drain in emergency loans early on. But in the end, they got it right, facilitating an orderly bankruptcy and exchanging government debt for a large equity stake that may ultimately pay off for taxpayers. It is unquestionable that without government intervention, GM would have gone down for good. Some thought that for the best -- the weak die in capitalism, after all. But the associated spike in unemployment and collapse of first-tier suppliers would have been devastating for years to come.

On the TARP funds, the government is getting repaid...by Goldman Sachs, by Bank of America, by Citigroup.

The economy is growing again and unemployment has stopped rising. The financial system didn't collapse. Stocks are way up since the President took office. The President and the Administration deserve some credit, as does Ben Bernake.

The performance was not perfect, to be sure. We are $180 billion into AIG, money we will likely never see all of again, and we got there without adequate controls on pay or policy. The President stupidly said the stimulus bill would contain unemployment at 8%, a gross mis-calculation about the state of the economy. The administration has all but missed a huge opportunity to significantly change how financial services operate in this country and has not done anything to stop the "too big to fail" phenomenon. Not enough home owners have received mortgage relief. There is not enough credit flowing to consumers or small businesses.

But considering the abyss we were staring into, the administration by and large deserves credits for making the right big calls on the economy.

#2 Health Care -- Expand Access to Insurance, Contain Costs
Grade: C-

On the plus side: this President has gotten further with health care reform than any previous President. He has already signed a bill into law that has dramatically expanded access to insurance for poor and lower-middle class children. The bill that might make it out of Congress would expand coverage to millions.

On the minus side: he promised a bill by August, then by year-end and got neither. The big bill is not signed into law. Even if it does get signed, while it is good on the access side, it does nothing serious about cost. There are no provisions to reimport prescription drugs or negotiate for world-pricing. It has no public option to compete with insurance companies or cost regulations with teeth. It fails to address tort reform and the cost of malpractice insurance.

These grade could go way up next year if the President signs a bill into law. But it is fair to say that in year 1, he failed more than he succeeded.

#3 Environment -- Invest in Green Energy, Cap Carbon Emissions
Grade: D+

On the plus side: there were some decent clean energy investments in the stimulus bill, the House passed a Cap and Trade bill. The EPA can regulate Carbon by executive order.

On the minus side: Cap and Trade is stuck in the Senate and there appears to be no will after the bruising and long battle on health care. The administration has presented no clear energy strategy -- how exactly are we going to reduce our dependence on foreign oil?

All in all, nothing substantial has changed in our environmental policy. A very incomplete set of accomplishments.

#4 All Other
Grade: C-

On the plus side: decisive action on Afghanistan (albeit after a LONG wait), a clear exit strategy in Iraq, better relationships with our allies, several very good laws and executive orders (the Fair Pay Act, the Edward Kennedy Serve America Act, just to name a couple)

On the minus side: we are still firing Arabic translators from the military for being gay, the President's bowing and present-giving gaffes have started to get embarrassing, we've done nothing on immigration policy, ambassadorships are still full of patronage, the tone in Washington has gotten worse, not better.

My overall grade: C

The President gets credit on the economy. Everything else, is incomplete at best and failing at worst. Republicans will say that I am far too generous on the role of the administration in stabilizing the economy. But I truly believe that administration acts were critical. Democrats will say my bar is way too high for other issues, considering what other Presidents have done. But I didn't set that bar, the President did, in an early speech in which he promised all of what I graded in his first year, plus a lot of other things that aren't even discussed.

A mediocre start to a Presidency for a man who showed brilliance in the 2008 campaign. Let's hope year one just reflects some inexperience and growing pains, as they did with a young Clinton administration in 1993. The President could learn a thing or two in how Clinton evolved the game.

The Court of Public Opinion
Current Average of Approve Minus Disapprove (Month of January 2010, Jan 1-10): +3.7%

Obviously the wealth of polling data that is now available is not available for all previous administrations. However, the Gallup tracking poll is. So we'll contrast Obama's approve minus disapprove with the historical Gallup information. Here are the other post-World War II Presidents:

1. George W. Bush +77%
2. John F. Kennedy +59%
3. Lyndon Johnson +53%
4. George H.W. Bush +47%
5. Dwight Eisenhower +43%
6. Richard Nixon +23%
7. Jimmy Carter +19%
8. Bill Clinton +9%
Gerald Ford +9%
10. Barack Obama +4%
11. Ronald Reagan +3%
Harry Truman +3%

There have been some in the blogosphere that have stated that President Obama has the lowest approval rating on record. While I don't find that to be quite the case (it all comes down to what polls you pick and what day or range of days you use, if I were to use the low point for the President on the Gallup poll, I would have the same finding), he's close enough to the bottom of the year 1 rung that the court of public opinion weighs unfavorable against him.

On the plus side, a small percentage more people approve than disapprove of his performance. Also, as you can see from the above, first year numbers are not necessarily very instructive as to re-election prospects: numbers 1, 3, 5, 6, 8a, 11 and 11b were re-elected, numbers 4, 7 and 8b were not (John Kennedy obviously did not run.) And the biggest re-election landslides were #6 and #11a. So it isn't like his term is over.

And the circumstances coming in were definitely tough -- a massive economic crisis, tough wars in a war-weary nation and insanely high expectations all fuel the fall-off.

Still, in the court of public opinion, after 1 year, President Obama clearly gets bad marks.

Overall Public Opinion Grade; D


Presidential Promise-Keeping

politifact.com is tracking 507 documented promises that the President made on the campaign trail. Every once in a while they will add a promise if new campaign tape emerges or eliminate a promise if they determine that two they are tracking are redundant. But the rules for politifact are simple, if the President said it when he was running, they attempt to track it.

Of the 507 promises, the President has taken some sort of complete action (kept, broken or compromised) on 134 of them, or 26.4%. Right on track with being 25% of the way through his term. So Obama gets full marks for taking action on the issues that he promised.

Of the 134 he has acted on, 91 have been Kept, 31 have been Compromised on and 12 have been broken. Giving a full point for kept promises, a half point for compromises and no points for broken promises, the President has scored 106.5 promise-keeping points out of possible 134 on these promises, or a score of 79%. On face, this is a fantastic score. I think any reasonable observer would say that if a President does 80% of what he said he would do when he gets to office, that is about as good as it gets. My standard rule of thumb is about 50%.

So what are the key promises kept, compromised and broken? You can go to politifact.com and see all of them, but here are some highlights:

Kept:
- Establish a Credit Card Holder's Bill of Rights
- Expand Access to the Children's Health Insurance Program
- Implement plan to end the war in Iraq
- Send two additional brigades to Afghanistan
- Expand AmeriCorps
- Reverse restrictions on stem cell research

Compromised
- Set a three-month moratorium on foreclosures (a three-month moratorium was not set, but an alternate foreclosure-abatement plan was implemented)
- Increase TSA funding (it increased, but not by as much as he promised)
- No tax increases of any kind of people making less than $250,000 (cigarette taxes were increased by over 200%, although in a conflicting campaign statement, candidate Obama had stated support for such a tax)
- No signing statements to nullify the law congress writes (Obama has used signing statements, but claims they are for clarification only)

Broken
- Posting of bills on the internet for 5 days before signing (broken on his first major bill, the stimulus bill and continued from there)
- Health Care negotiations on C-SPAN (that, as we re-learned this week, won't be happening)
- Allow penalty-free hardship withdrawals from IRA's and 401K's in 2008 and 2009 (not done)

The interesting thing is that on SUBSTANCE, the President is near-perfect, every major policy area he has acted on has been in basic agreement with his positions on the campaign trail. Where he has failed has been on the openness and transparency issues...putting bills on the internet before signing, health care negotiations on C-SPAN, lobbyist rules, etc. And it is on this impression that "nothing has changed in Washington" that I think the President is most vulnerable.

Still, in total, whether you like it or not, on policy, you got what he said you were going to get.

Grade on Promise-Keeping: B+


Year 2 and Beyond
So what will the coming year hold? It may or may not hold a health care bill being signed into law (Chris Dodd talked about "hanging by a thread" today and an upset in Massachusetts would be a massive setback for the bill), we likely won't see a cap and trade bill. Congress has another set of budgeting to do, something which will start early to get Congress home in time for what is sure to be a vicious campaign season.

In short, it is likely that policy accomplishments in 2010 will be limited to the first 3 months of the year. If it's big and it isn't done by March, it probably won't get done.

And expect a bloody November, to a greater or lesser extent, for Democrats.

How the President reacts to smaller or non-existant majorities, as President Clinton had to do in 1995, will largely shape the arc of the rest of the Obama Presidency. So will the state of the economy and the success of his Afghanistan strategy. Eleven months ago, we were all asking, "doesn't it seem like the President is taking on too much?" The answer, at least after one year, appears to be "yes, he did." We'll see if the long view proves something different.

If you like this site tell your friends.

The Next Year in Politics

The 2009/2010 Schedule
The 2009 elections are now behind us and there are a mere 359 days until election day 2010. There is a heck of a lot of unfinished business in congress as well as a lot of mid-term primaries and campaigning that will commence shortly.

Let's take a look at the legislative calendar first.

There are 4 major categories of legislation that the congress will need to deal with in the next 359 days:

(1) Fiscal 2010 Appropriations

The status of Fiscal 2010 appropriations is below. The House finished its work on preliminary bills in late July (as it is supposed to.) Many of the bills have been slowly slogging through the Senate, which has been very slow to follow. Of the 17 major departments and categories requiring annual appropriation:
* 6 have been signed into law
* 5 have passed the House and the Senate and await work from a conference committee
* 6 have only had a version passed by the House with the Senate yet to act



The current continuing resolution (the second one passed) allows the 11 departments who are not yet funded to continue operating under Fiscal 2009 policies until December 18th, therefore this is the new "deadline" for congress to act on the remaining pieces of legislation. Of course, congress can always pass another continuing resolution and keep kicking the can down the road.

(2) Cap and Trade
The House has already passed a cap and trade bill, the Senate has been bogged down in various committees trying to construct something that could get 60 votes. There are recent signs of life and compromise on this bill, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) helping to craft a compromise that would bring along moderate members of teh GOP. Clearly whatever clears the Senate will be far more conservative than the bill that passed the House, but the President has some hope of getting something that fulfills this domestic policy priority passed in the next 3 or 4 months.

(3) Universal Health Care
Again, et tu, Harry Reid? The House on Saturday passed its sweeping, trillion-dollar bill. The Senate has no clear path to a 60-vote supermajority, although clearly it is going to require a much more conservative approach than the House. Reverting to a "trigger mechanism" is likely as are other concessions to centrists Lieberman, Snowe and Nelson. If those three get on board with a bill, it will pass. If they oppose it, it will get killed by the a "super minority" of 41+ votes.

(4) Fiscal 2011 Appropriations
In all my writing about Fiscal 2010, I should remind everyone that we are scarcely more than 10 months away from the start of Fiscal 2011 and that the House really needs to start taking up the 2011 bills by June or so. There will be a strong incentive for Democrats to get appropriations passed on time this year, since the incoming congress in 2011 seems highly likely to be more conservative than the outgoing one in 2010.

(5) Other Domestic Policy Priorities
Remember immigration?
How about Gays in the Military?
Entitlement reform? (yeah, right)
If we are going to add any new domestic policy priorities, it has to happen in a narrow window.

So how much time is left to do all of this?
Well..
Congress takes a break in November for Thanksgiving, in December and January for Christmas and New Year's, extended breaks in the spring and summer for district work periods and holidays and...let's face it, EVERYONE on both sides of the aisle wants to get home by next August to campaign for re-election.

So the window is fairly narrow.

The House clearly won't be the problem -- both the rules in the House and the nature of the Democratic majority make the House by far the easier of the two bodies to get legislation through. The Senate, as it usually is, will be the bottleneck. Stay tuned to see how things play out.

Election 2010

Don't kid yourself, the 2010 elections are upon us. Let's look first at the Senate.
Since my last update there has not been a ton of polling as pollsters had focused heavily on the 2009 races. Therefore, there are no changes to my projections. As a starting point, there are 39 Democrats, 22 Republicans and 2 Independents who are not up for re-election and will be returning to the Senate in 2011.

In addition, there are 7 Democratic seats that I consider very safe:
Hawaii, Maryland, New York (Schumer), Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin

There are also 6 GOP seats that I consider very safe:
Florida, Alabama, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah

Add these in and you have 46 Democratic seats, 28 GOP seats and 2 Independent seats that are either guaranteed or highly unlikely to change hands over the course of the next year.

You can see from this the challenge the GOP will face, even in a pro-GOP year. With 48 Democratic or Democratic caucusing (Independents Lieberman and Sanders) seats basically out of play, trying to get to 51 will be very difficult.

The next category, the Likely Holds -- seats where one party is ahead by 10%+ bring further clarity.

They include 4 Democratic seats:
California, Indiana, North Dakota and Massachusetts*
* Special election schedule for January

And 6 GOP seats:
Alaska, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Louisiana

Factoring in these seats, we have:
50 Democrats, 34 GOP seats and 2 Independent seats that are likely to return.

Which leaves us with 14 races likely to be hotly contested:
Lean Democratic Hold (2) -- New York (Gillebrand)and Arkansas (Lincoln)
Lean Democratic Pick-up (1) -- Missouri (Bond's vacant seat)
Toss-up (4) -- Illinois (Obama/Burris open seat), Pennsylvania (Specter), New Hampshire (Gregg open seat), Ohio (Voinovich open seat)
Lean GOP Pick-up (4) -- Colorado (Bennett), Delaware (Biden/Kaufmann open seat), Connecticut (Dodd) and Nevada (Reid)
Lean GOP Hold (3) -- Kentucky (Bunning open seat), North Carolina (Burr) and Georgia (Isakson)

So my current projection, if we split the toss-ups evenly, gives us 55 Democrats, 43 Republicans and 2 Independents. If the GOP sweeps the toss-ups, that gets them to 45 seats. In their best-case scenario, where they sweep the toss-ups and take all the leaners (which is tough, but not inconceivable), they get to 48. They don't get to 51 votes (what they would need for the majority, with Vice President Joe Biden holding the tie-breaking vote if it hits 50/50) under any scenario that I can envision. If they were somehow to bust Democratic double-digit leads in the "likely hold" seats for the DEMs, they could get to 52, but that would require beating Evan Bayh in Indiana, Barbara Boxer in California, winning a special election in Massachusetts AND beating Byron Dorgan in North Carolina. Every single one of these events seems highly unlikely.

On the House side, all 435 seats are up, so the outcome has much more potential to shift. Current aggregated generic polling has the Democrats at +3% (although polling continues to vary widely depending on the poll you believe), short of the 7% they were polling going into 2008 or the 10% that they actually took the congressional vote by in 2008. These numbers would imply a GOP pick-up of 15 to 17 seats, short of what they would need to gain a majority by a significant amount, but a good pick-up for a mid-term. These numbers could shift dramatically if President Obama's poll numbers continue to fall.

Ironically, the Blue Dogs that have been pushing for more moderate policies and generally causing the Democratic leadership pain are the ones most at risk. That's the weird thing about the structure of House races -- the moderate seats are the ones that change hands in swing years.

I'll be with you every step of the way, tracking the races. It's going to be a fun year for elections as obviously much more is at stake than in 2009.

Some Side Notes

Based on 2009 election results, where Rasmussen was indeed more accurate than the majority of other polls, I will include their polling at full weight going forward, until empirical evidence suggest that I shouldn't.

Recovey.gov reports that as of last week, $123.5 billion in spending and $83.8 billion in tax cuts have been paid out as a result of the stimulus or about 26.3% of the bill's total reach. Given that we have lost 7 million jobs since the start of the recession and the total claim of the stimulus bill was to attempt to "save or create" (whatever that means) 3 million jobs, there is some credence to liberals like Thomas Friedman who feel we are drastically under stimulating. But the political reality is that there is no will to do more, at least explicitly. Small scale moves like extending unemployment benefits again (which the President signed into law this week) or small projects embedded into appropriations bills (of which there are plenty) may happen. Perhaps the Cap and Trade bill would be a good time to include a bunch of infrastructure spending to upgrade our electrical grid and build green power? It might accomplish two goals at once...

Politifact.com's latest grading of the President's promise keeping, shows of the 513 promises that it is tracking:
52 have been kept
14 compromised (half-kept)
7 broken
440 to be acted on (in the works, stalled or no action)

So, the President has acted on 14.2% of his promises. Of those he has acted on, he has been true to his work 80.8% of the time. His term is 20% over, so he is obviously behind schedule if he is going to do everything he promised. But his consistency of approach is actually pretty good compared to history.

If you like this site, tell your friends.

Governor's Race Spotlight, Appropriations Malaise Continues, Countdown to a Healthcare Deadline

Down to the Wire in New Jersey and Virginia
We are 16 days from the elections for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, two races that because of their off-year nature (these are the only two states that elect their governors in odd-numbered years) always receive a disproportionate amount of attention.

So let's check out where we stand;
In, New Jersey, we now have an extremely close race.

I'll break down the numbers a few different ways.

The most commonly used average in political circles is the "RealClearPolitics" or RCP, an average generated by the site realclearpolitics.com which uses a pure average of recent polling data. I personally think there are potential issues with this average as there are vast differences in the polling sample of different polls and therefore their accuracy. In the New Jersey race for instance, there is a current New York Times Poll that sampled 475 voters and a Quinnipiac poll that sampled 1,264 voters. Clearly, in my mind, the Quinnipiac poll should be given more weight because they talked to more people. So my methodology has always been to combine the poll results into one "megapoll" by aggregating the responses. The effect of this is that the Quinnipiac poll has 2.66 times the weight in this example. If the poll numbers are all similar, this is an academic point, but if the poll numbers vary widely, this becomes an important distinction.

The second set of numbers I'm going to look at are with and without polling results from the firm Rasmussen Reports. My practice has always been to look at polling results from all non-partisan polling firms (I exclude results from partisan-affiliated firms such as Strategic Vision for the Republicans and PPP for the Democrats as they inherently run the risk of polling bias). Rasmussen Reports has been a respected, independent polling firm. Their results in the 2008 election were in line with those of other polls as well as relatively close to the final results. However, it is difficult to ignore that their methodology has deviated significantly this year from that of other polling firms. Their Presidential Approval polls have been regularly showing a 10 to 20% gap versus all other Presidential Approval polls. To me, this calls into question the sampling methodology that they are using. Now, we don't have emperical results to validate this -- it is possible that Rasmussen has it right and everyone else has it wrong, but we won't know, at least until we get some election results. So, for completeness, I'm looking at numbers with and without the Rasmussen results.

Finally, we'll look at the numbers both way based on the "median" poll. This theory is to throw out high and low outlier polls until we get to the poll that is "in the center" of the numbers. If there are two polls, in the center, we will take a pure average of the two, as is typical in median calculations.

Averaging all three of these methodologies is how we did the Presidential prediction model last year, which had some pretty darn good results.

So, based on all of this, NJ stands as follows:
All Non-Partisan Polls Without Rasmussen
Weighted Average Christie +1.1% Christie +0.2%
Pure Average (RCP) Christie +0.8% Corzine +0.3%
Median of Polls Christie +1.0% Christie +1.0%
Average of Averages Christie +1.0% Christie +0.3%

So, with or without the Rasmussen polls, any way you slice and dice the data, this one is extremely close. Christie holds a tiny lead over Corzine, but Corzine has been closing fast with a huge spending blitz, and as we've discussed before, New Jersey tends to tilt blue at the very end. This one rates a Toss-Up going into the final 16 days.

As a reminder, I endorse Independent Chris Daggett in this race. His current polling shows as following:
All Non-Partisan Polls Without Rasmussen
Weighted Average 13.6% 15.0%
Pure Average (RCP) 13.6% 15.0%
Median of Polls 14.0% 14.0%
Average of Averages 13.7% 14.3%

Okay, so Daggett is extremely unlikely to win. 14% is a pretty respectable showing against two well-funded, establishment candidates.

In Virginia,

Utilizing the same methodology:
All Non-Partisan Polls Without Rasmussen
Weighted Average McDonnell +8.7% McDonnell +9.3%
Pure Average (RCP) McDonnell +8.8% McDonnell +9.3%
Median of Polls McDonnell +8.5% McDonnell +9.0%
Average of Averages McDonnell +8.7% McDonnell +9.2%

Note that in this case, the Rasmussen Reports poll actually helps Democrat Craigh Deeds.

Any way you cut it, this is a Likely GOP Pick-up.

As a side note, I'd like to endorse moderate Democrat and likely loser Craigh Deeds for the post. Deeds is a reasonable guy who will pursue the same type of centrist policies that the Virginia Democratic Party of Mark Warner, Tim Kahne and Douglas Wilder has long been known for. Regrettably, it does not appear that he will get the change.

I'll keep up with regular updates as the races progress over the next couple of weeks.

Why Is This So Hard and Who Is to Blame?
Job number one of Congress is to pass a budget for the federal government each year. Why else do we have a Congress but to determine the size and spending priorities for the executive branch?

So why can't we seem to get this done in anything resembling an on time fashion?

Okay, I admit that this is better than last year, when the Democratic Congress and President Bush couldn't find any common ground and kicked the can down the road for 6 months until finally passing a pork-laden omnibus spending bill that President Obama signed. But we have a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President. Nobody is even hinting that Obama is picking any fights or threatening any vetos. So why are we almost three weeks into Fiscal 2010 (which started in October) and we still don't have most of a budget?

The chart below shows the current status of all the major appropriations bills:
As you can see, the only bill to actually become law so far has been the legisilative branch appropriations bill, which also contained a continuing resolution, which kept the government open by extending Fiscal 2009 spending policies for one month (through October 31st.) Beyond that, two bills have been passed by congress and are expected to be signed by the President shortly. Still, massive chunks of the federal budget remain an unknown.

So who is to blame? Harry Reid and the Senate Democratic leadership. As you can see from the chart above, the House of Representatives (where all the bills have to start out, per the constitution) passed every major appropriations bill by the end of July. This left all of August and September for the Senate to pass its versions, the conference committees to get together and iron out the differences and both houses to pass the conference report.

The Senate simply didn't get the job done. There are STILL 8 major cabinet departments for which the Senate has not passed a version of appropriations. At this pace, we are sure to have another continuing resolution for some departments while the Senate continues to work at a snails pace.

How sad and incompetent. Can you imagine running a household budget without knowing what your paycheck is going to be? That's what we are asking of the cabinet secretaries at the moment. Think about how many poor decisions, large and small are probably being made as a result of this.

Health Care Looms Large
The wide consensus in Washington is that for health care legislation to happen during this congress, it would need to pass this year, as the session in 2010 will undoubtedly be difficult to navigate with mid-term congressional elections looming large.

Congress has a "targeted adjournment" date of October 30th, meaning that they were originially shooting for October 30th to be the last day that the chambers met for the year. Clearly, this isn't going to happen, as there is a ton of unfinished business to deal with this year. However, even using December 31st as the marker of the end of this year's congress, there isn't much time left to pass a health care bill.

There are 74 days left in the year, during which congress would have to:
(1) Pass health care bills through both the House and the Senate
(2) Iron out differences in a conference committee
(3) Pass the conference report in both houses
(4) Pass all the remaining budgetary items (a ton as you can see from above)

This is to say nothing of dealing with Cap and Trade, which has passed the House, but still must be dealt with in the Senate and a conference report passed, if something is to happen this year.

Recall, that President Obama articulated three goals for this year:
(1) Legislation to stabilize the economy
(2) Universal healthcare
(3) Environmental reform including cap and trade

#1 was accomplished early, at least as the administration defined it (we have and will again debate how effective the stimulus has been), with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law on February 17th.

#2 and #3 both seem very elusive. The odds of getting Cap and Trade done this year seem like they are less than 25% and health care still seems a 50/50 shot at best.

The trouble for the Obama Administration is that if the can gets kicked down the road, not only will it be tough to do something in 2010, it will get even harder in 2011 and 2012, where, if my projections hold, he will face a congress that, while still a Democratic majority in both houses, is to the right of the existing congress.

Tall hills to climb. Time for some leadership, Mr. President.

Stimulus Update
To date, $288.5 billion of the stimulus funds have been authorized (57.8%) and $116.0 billion spent (23.2%). The tax cuts, which took effect in May, will automatically roll through December, 2010.

The adminsitration's figures show a ton of jobs "saved or created" by the bill -- almost 16 million. All of this is pretty fuzzy math and I would pay it much credence.

The real measure of the effectiveness of this bill, which was as much an investment and reshaping of the US economy as it was a stimulus bill, will be in the economic growth rates over the next 3 years. We will need time to assess whether the bill worked or not.

President Obama's Promises
Today is day 272 of the Obama Administration. He is 18.6% of the way through his elected term as President.

So how is he coming against the long list of promises he made?

According to the tracking at politifact.com, President Obama had 505 documented promises during the campaign.

Of those 505, he has kept 47 of them, partially kept 12 of them and broken 7 of them. This means that about 13% of his promises have been acted on in some way and giving him half a point for the partially kept promises, a full point for kept promises and no points for broken promises, of the ones he has acted on he is doing what he said 80% of the time.

Not bad. But those were the easy promises. The hard ones are still in the unacted column. And, with almost 19% of his term gone and only 13% of his promises acted on, he is falling significantly behind schedule if he is going to do everything he said in his term.

Of course, you could look at those promises as 8 years worth of promises rather than 4. But that would be rather presumptuous. We are a long way from understanding the dynamics of the 2012 elections yet.

I appreciate you reading. If you like this site, tell your friends.

A Check-in on Obama's Promises, 2010 Updates, Ridiculous Protest?

Is Obama Doing What He Said?
Today marks President Obama's 230th day in office, 15.7% of his term now having been completed. Time for a check-in on if he is doing what he promised.

The continuing cry from conservatives around the country is that President Obama ran as a moderate and has governed as a liberal. I've written about this fallacy before -- to me, President Obama clearly ran as a liberal on POLICY issues (his views on taxation, health care, climate change and such were all well known early in the primaries), but ran as a post-partisan "uniter". On the post-partisanship question, he has failed more than he has succeeded, with the hallmark legislation of his administration passing in a partisan fashion and prospects for a highly bi-partisan piece of health care reform legislation floundering. That being said, I've noted by way of the partisanship index, that for all the rancor in Washington, there are actually a number of smaller pieces of legislation that have been quietly getting done in a very bipartisan manner. On balance though, it would be hard to credibly say that President Obama has changed the tone in Washington.

On the policy front, the emperical evidence indicates that President Obama is headed largely down the path that he committed to. First, on major policy inititaives: the stimulus, healthcare reform and carbon control legislation are all exactly along the lines of what President Obama articulated on the campaign trail. His policy in Iraq, is, if anything, more Conservative than how he ran -- combat troops are staying longer and 50,000 "non-combat" (whatever that means), troops are staying 2 years longer than he committed on the campaign trail. In Afghanistan, President Obama campaigned on escalating military efforts and he is certainly headed down that path.

Looking at the raw numbers, the latest, independent, politifact.com assessment gives President Obama the following scores on the 516 promises that they documented from the 2008 campaign:
Of the 516 promises, 59 have some sort of "final" disposition (they have either been kept, broken or compromised.) At 11.4% of his 516, this is slightly behind scheduled, if he is going to deal with all his promises in his 4 years in office.

Of the 59, 41 of the promises are rated "kept", 11 are rated "compromise" and 7 are rated "broken". Giving 1 point for kept promises and half a point for compromises, this gives President Obama a promise keeping rating of 79%.

Of the 457 that do not have a final disposition, 91 are rated "in the works", meaning President Obama clearly still supports them and is working towards implementation. 12 are rated "stalled" meaning that the President has not outright broken them, but appears to have either passed on opportunities to implement changes or has made it clear that it is not a policy priority. The remaining 354 are rated "no action", which simply means that the issue hasn't really come up yet.

This gives us the following rates:
(1) Promises Dealt With (11.4% of total)
Kept: 69%
Compromised: 19%
Broken: 12%
Overall Score: 79%

(2) Promises To Be Dealt With (88.6% of total)
In The Works: 20%
Stalled: 3%
No Action: 76%

Overall
Kept: 8%
In The Works: 18%
Compromised: 2%
Stalled or Broken: 4%
No Action: 68%

% Promises Completed (1 pt for Kept, 1/2 pt for In the Works or Compromised): 18%
% of Term Completed: 16%

Not too bad a record, all things considered. Of course, we don't have comparability with other Presidents, based on the relative newness of politifact.com, which is a fantastic project for holding politicans accountable. It would be hard to imagine a modern President who would have better ratings at this stage in his Presidency, though.

2010 Updates
Not a ton of new news in the races, but the trend definitely seems to be heading towards the GOP. Here is the latest news:

Nevada -- two new polls again possible opponents show Sen. Harry Reid (D) trailing two possible opponents, although both were withing the margin of error. This is enough to take the race all the way from a likely DEM hold to a toss-up. You could make a case to take it to a Lean Republican Pick-up, but I'll wait for some more information to confirm it -- I don't like to move races three notches in one update unless there is more information than this.

New York -- no change to the rating...yet. Incumbent Sen. Kirsten Gillebrand (D) is crushing Rep. Peter King (R) in statewide polls, but is in a dead heat with Gov. George Pataki (R). I'm going to leave this a likely DEM hold for now, as it is unclear that Pataki will run, but it would move to a toss-up if Pataki announces that he is in.

Massachussetts -- we initiate coverage with the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D). It is very unclear who the candidates will be, but in this heavily blue state, I'm initiating this one as a likely DEM hold.

Illinois -- no change in the rating as this one remains a toss-up. New polls show Kirk and Giannoulis in a deat heat, confirming that this will be a hot race.

Pennsylvania -- remains a toss-up for now, but may shift back in the blue column. Polls show incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter (D) beating former Rep. Pat Toomey (R) in a general election. But he has to first get past a primary challenge. If Sestak unseats Specter in the primary, however, Toomey leads in the general. Specter is leading primary polilng now. Democrats would be wise to stick with him or they may give this seat up.

Florida -- more evidence that Gov. Charlie Crist (R) is way ahead in this one. He continues to hold double digit leads in new polls. This one stays a likely GOP hold.

All of which leaves us with:
Safe DEM Holds (7)
Maryland, New York (Schumer), Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Hawaii & Wisconsin

Likely DEM Holds (3)
North Dakota, New York (Gillebrand), Massachussetts

Lean DEM Holds (2)
Arkansas, California

Lean DEM Pick-ups (3)
New Hampshire, Ohio, Missouri

Toss-ups -- GOP Held (0)

Toss-ups -- DEM Held (3)
Nevada, Illinois, Pennsylvania

Lean GOP Pick-ups (3)
Colorado, Delaware, Connecticut

Lean GOP Hold (3)
Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia

Likely GOP Hold (6)
Florida, Alaska, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota

Safe GOP Hold (6)
Alabama, Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah

Which leaves us with a projection of:
GOP Pick-up of 0 to 3 seats (central projection +1 seat)
GOP pick-up of 11 seats is needed to gain a majority

In the House, polls are all over the map. The Rasmussen Poll (which this year has almost always been the most GOP-leaning poll on all subjects), shows the GOP at +7%, whereas the Ipos-McClatchy poll shows the DEMS at +8%. Neither of these scenarios seems plausible right now. Taking a "margin of error overlap" approach to all the polls, my guess is that we are somewhere between GOP +1% and DEMS +2%. The sample-weighted average of all polls shows Dems +0.7%.

Based on this, my current projection is:
GOP Pick-up of 16 to 34 seats (central projection is +17 seats)

I'm not sure what to do about the Rasmussen polls going forward if the current trend of them being 10-15% more Republican than all the other polls continues. On the one hand, I could throw them out as an outlier. On the other hand, I don't really know whose sampling methodology is right and perhaps Rasmussen has found a formula that the other guys have missed that will prove to be more accurate. Without emperical evidence to validate polls versus results, it is difficult to know. And Rasmussen was well within the mainstream last November (+6% for Obama vs. an actual result of +7.2%.) My inclination is to leave them in the averages and hope to continue the trend from last November, where a large group of sample-weighted polls lead to a very reliable results.

The President Can't Talk to School Kids?
Even Democratic hypocrites (and there are plenty of them) would never have dreamed of protesting President George W. Bush reading to school children. Yet, conservatives across the nation are protesting President Obama speaking to school children, claiming some sort of political indoctrination. That's right, folks, the Orwellian plan of the Obama Administration is to indoctrinate third graders by having the President talk to them about achieving their goals while sending secret subliminal messages that will make them force their parents to support universal health care. What a joke.

President Reagan actually made a blatantly political speech to school kids in the 1980s, speaking out against the evil of taxes, and nobody protested or threatened to pull their kids out of school. All indications are that President Obama's speech will be a heck of a lot more benign than this. If these protestors are serious, than I fear for the type of education their kids are getting at home.

I'm not one to liberally throw the race card around, but does it strike anyone else that these protestors don't so much have a problem with the President addressing school kids, but perhaps with a BLACK President addressing school kids. Shame on them.

If you like this site, tell your friends.

Barack Obama, A Presidency in Trouble?

Barack Obama has been President of the United States for 182 days or roughly one eighth of his elected term. In the past couple of weeks an increasing theme has emerged, first in the conservative blogosphere and more recently in the main stream media -- is the President on the ropes?

Boy, a lot changes quickly in politics. Six months ago, as the President was sworn into office before huge, adoring crowds it felt like he could do no wrong. Sure, Rush Limbaugh hoped he would fail, but we expect as much from Rush. As for the vast majority of us -- all the Democrats, most of the independents and at least half the Republicans, we all wanted him to do well. We believed he might really be that special, different kind of politican that could change to tone in Washington. What a long time ago that seems like.

So what is the health of the Presidency of Barack Obama? Let's do a run down.

I. The Agenda
Coming into office, President Obama made his policy priorities crystal clear. There were a lot of promises (more on that later) but only 3 clear priorities: Economic Stimulus, Energy Policy and Universal Healthcare.

Let's look at where he stands on each:
a. Economic Stimulus
What He Sought: A large ($700-$800 billion) stimulus package that would pass with a fair amount of Republican support (his stated goal was 80 votes in the Senate) that would stabilize the economy and hold the line on unemployment at 8%.
What He Got: A large ($787 billion) stimulus package, passed in a highly partisan manner (a highly partisan index score of 0.94) that has failed to stop unemployment from rising to 9.5%.

My Analysis:
That the President got such a large bill through congress so quickly was an impressive feat. The way the bill was designed (with the spending spread over 2+ years), the practical fact is that it is impossible to judge the effectiveness of the bill at this juncture. What the President does have is a PR nightmare, partly self-inflicted. Stating a concrete goal of holding unemployment to 8% while in a turbulent, unpredictable economic situation was a huge tactical error. The structure of the bill (funding primarily flows through state governments and private enterprise), while it may have made the bill politically palatable to some makes the PR all the harder. FDR could point to a concrete 4.5 million people who were being employed by the Feds on infrastructure programs. Obama has to rely on vague economic theory about how many jobs were created.

The Verdict: Too soon to tell. If unemployment begins falling, Republican arguments that the stimulus isn't helping will be academic -- people will consider it a success. If unemployment keeps rising, expect the drum beat to get louder and some vulnerable Democrats to start jumping ship from the Obamaonomics wagon.

b. Energy Policy
What He Sought: A broad-based reform of energy policy that includes increased fuel economy standards, higher standards for renewable energy, higher standards for building energy efficiency, and, most critically, a cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions.
What He Got: Fuel efficiency standards -- done. The rest of his goals are addressed 100% by the climate change bill that very narrowly passed the house. Senate prospects remain very much in doubt.

My Analysis:
President Obama has laid out an ambitious agenda. A liberal bent to the House, some compromises on carbon credits to coal-users and some political strong-arming got the bill through the lower body of congress. The Senate is almost sure to weaken provisions in the bill and it may be a battle to get any sort of meaningful legislation fail.

The Verdict: Of Obama's 3 central agenda items, this is the one on which he can most afford to fail. He made it a central theme, but does anybody seriously think that if the economy recovers and people get universal healthcare that any significant number of swing voters will care that we didn't do cap and trade? Prospects are probably 50/50 that the President gets a meaningful law ot sign.

c. Universal Healthcare
What He Sought: A bill that creates universal access to affordable health care for all Americans.
What He Got: An expansion of the SCHIP program from 7 million to 11 million kids. Other than that, not a significant bill through either house of congress.

My Analysis:
Odds on this look long. Blue Dog Democrats are demanding serious changes to legislation in the House. The Senate looks even more divided. The ONLY way I can see a bill getting to the President's desk this year is by giving serious ground -- giving up on the "public option" in favor of subsidized exchanges. Limiting government aid to the more needy. Relaxing the rules on "play or pay" to exclude more small businesses. These are painful sacrifices for a guy who once supported single-payer health care. But it is this or no bill, in my opinion. And the President needs to get off the sidelines and start leading on this one.

The Verdict: As I've often noted, President Clinton survived failing on this issue. I'm not sure President Obama will. With Democrats firmly in control of both Houses of congress, if we can't get Health Care Reform done, we might as well have Republicans.

II. Public Approval
The President is not the PR dynamo that he once was, but all is not lost. The Gallup Approval numbers (the ones that I always use for comparability to previous Presidents due to the wealth of available data) peg him at 60% approval for today and an average of 59% for the past week of data. This puts him right about average for Post-World War II Presidents. Not exactly a home run, but not an overt failure either. It means he doesn't have the political capital to strong-arm things through a reluctant congress, but it also doesn't make his agenda poision, the way President Bush's was late in his second term.

III. The Promises
Politifact.com has documented 515 promises that President Obama made on the campaign trail. Of these, it rates that he has fulfilled 32 of them, compromised on 10 of them (partially fulfilled them) and broken 7 of them. This is a decent batting average on the one she has dealt with so far -- if we give 1 point for a kept promise, half a point for a compromise and zero points for a broken promise, the President is batting 76% on the promises he has dealt with.

But he has only dealt with 9.5% of them. Sure his term is only 12.5% in, but he is falling behind. A promise not acted on in his term equals a promise broken at the end of the day.

We didn't have politifact.com for past Presidents, so it's hard to set a benchmark, but I'd say that 50% kept is a pretty good standard from what I have seen of past Presidents. The President has a lot of ground to cover on a lot of issues to even meet that, relatively unambitious-sounding mark.

The good news? Politifact shows 78 promises as "in the works", meaning that the President is pushing for action on them. If fulfilled, these represent over 15% of his total promises.

Conclusions
So is the Obama Presidency in crisis? No. But he isn't the messiah either. The next 4 months will be fairly criticial to my assessment of the President's success. Two questions more than any will define his success or failure:
(1) Will he find a way to get a health care bill through?
(2) Will economic growth return and unemploymetn start to fall?

If the answer winds up being yes to both, the President may well be bulletproof for years to come. If the answer winds up no, watch out for a dramatic swing in power in 2010.

Stay tuned. If you like this site, tell your friends.