60 days, 60 stats - #2

In part 2 of this series, I'd like to look at Obama's record.  The number is 190 - that's how many of his campaign promises Obama has kept, according to the people over at politifact.  That sounds like a big number, but any good stats professor will tell you "when they give you a number, ask for a %, and when they give you a %, ask for a number."

190 represents 37% of the campaign promises that candidate Obama made in 2008.  He has broken 83 (16%) and there are a total of 161 (32%) that are either stalled or in the works.  A related interesting number is 72 (14%) - that's the number of campaign promises where Obama has COMPROMISED with the Republicans to achieve something that advances his goal, rather than nothing at all.

Let's put that in simpler terms with a little rounding.  For every 10 promises this guy made, he's delivered on 4 of them, broken 2 of them, compromised on 1 of them, and the remaining 3 are either stalled or in the works.

I'm a pragmatic guy and a student of politics.  I did not vote for Obama because I believe he walks on water and could overhaul the DEEPLY entrenched, special interest-driven, status quo in Washington while simultaneously getting us out of a recession and fixing the deficit he inherited from Bush.  There are many people out there who thought he was capable of doing all that in 4 years, jumped on the SS Hope-n-Change, and are sorely disappointed to discover that he does not, in fact, walk on water.  But I say his numbers are pretty good, especially considering the GOP leadership in congress openly declared that their primary goal these last four years was to not let him accomplish anything, especially closing Guantanamo (one of Obama's big campaign promises).