Keeping Score

Trying not to get totally sidelined by the Obameter!


My God I wish all the Presidents had one of these... It would have been amazing to watch the Bushes break promises, or see more clearly Reagan and Clinton's agendas.


This is truly our first 21st Century President, now being held accountable to every campaign promise, in the golden light of free speech and public access. That is a good definition of transparency, and certainly everything Obama's Administration does to address this extant challenge will set precedent.


So lets see the score card for what it really is:


TOTAL PROMISES:
515

PERCENTAGE ADDRESSED (Jan ~ Oct [so about ten months]):
36% (185/515)

PERCENTAGE ADDRESSED KEPT:
25% (47/185)

PERCENTAGE ADDRESSED COMPROMISED:
6% (12/185)

PERCENTAGE ADDRESSED BROKEN:
4% (7/185)

PERCENTAGE ADDRESSED STALLED:
6% (12/185)

PERCENTAGE IN THE WORK (ADDRESSED and TOTAL):
ADDRESSED; 58% (107/185)
TOTAL; 21% (107/515)

***

Now lets assign a number of time to this data set: we could argue that it has only been ten months, and 10/48 is about 21%. For simplicity lets say that some political capital has been expended and that this report card is emblemic of about one years worth of future work load-- or 25%.

Lets assume a similar rate of success/failure per annum:

9.125% KEPT
2.33% COMPROMISED
1.35% BROKEN
20.777% IN PROCESS


We then get this matrix:

1 2 3 4
KEPT 47 94 141 188
COMPROMISED 12 24 36 48
BROKEN 7 14 21 28
STALLED 12 24 36 48
PROCESS 107 214 281 203
UNSTARTED 330 145 0 0


Which translates to:

By year three all promises will have been addressed. If we count compromises as promises kept thats about a 46% success rate, or without compromise about a .365 batting average-- not bad.

5.44% of promises are broken, and 9.32% are "stalled." If we assume these to be the same we come up with a cumulative 14.76% failure rate.

At this same rate of progress, assuming a re-election, adding an additional 31 promises then by year eight:


5 6 7
KEPT 235 282 329
COMPROMISED 60 72 84
BROKEN 35 42 49
STALLED 60 72 84
PROCESS 125 78 0


That would leave year eight to hammer through the 84 pieces of stalled business and run the new candidate slates.

It translates to the following baseball stats:

Kept .603
Comp .154
Broke .090
Stall .153


I know this methodology is simplistic, but to imagine a President held this accountable that someone like me can do the baseball math-- and to imagine a President who can keep his or her word 75% of the time in the light of public scrutiny-- is a good start.