Obama sticking to old promises

WASHINGTON – Read Barack Obama’s lips: no new promises.

Not now, at least.

It’s a long way from May to November, but so far the president’s campaign speeches have been strikingly free of new pledges.

The president’s early pitch to voters is heavy on promises kept and promises still in the works. (Never mind about those pesky promises broken.)

A typical Obama campaign speech includes a “change is” refrain that showcases the greatest hits of his first term: Change is rescuing the auto industry. Change is health care reform. Change is raising fuel-efficiency standards for cars. Change is ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military. Change is the Lilly Ledbetter law to ensure women get pay equal to men. And so on.

What does it say that one of Obama’s biggest applause lines is still his reference to the Ledbetter law – signed on his ninth day in office?

“His issue is performance, not promises,” says Darrell West, a government scholar at the Brookings Institution. “His message is that he’s done a lot to help people, and he doesn’t want to over-promise for the second term.”

Obama’s springtime script fits the playbook for incumbent presidents seeking re-election.

Job One, particularly in the age of attack ads, is to define your opponent. Obama is largely leaving that chore to campaign surrogates and early advertising for now.

Job Two is to remind voters of your accomplishments and say how you’ll build on them. This is where Obama is right now.

His campaign’s new “Forward” ad showcases the end of the war in Iraq as “a promise kept by a president who understands America’s promise.”

His Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, has been quick to mock the “forward” theme, saying: “Forward, what, over the cliff?”

So far, his political focus has been on fundraising, but that’s about to change. Today he holds his first two official re-election rallies, in the battleground states of Ohio and Virginia.

University of Texas political scientist Bruce Buchanan says Obama is taking victory laps on foreign policy and national security successes such as the end of the Iraq war and the killing of Osama bin Laden because Republicans have been so successful at running down his achievements.

First lady Michelle Obama, in her campaign speeches, has been coupling her husband’s message of promises kept with a plea for patience.

“The reality is that real change is slow,” she said at a recent fundraiser. “And it never happens all at once.”

It’s a different tone from Obama’s 2008 campaign, with its “yes we can” optimism. Politifact.com compiled a list of more than 500 promises that Obama made during that campaign and gives this status report: 35 percent kept, 11 percent compromised, 13 percent broken, 12 percent stalled and 27 percent in the works.

What new promises Obama adds to his list will depend on the arc of the campaign. An incumbent who’s cruising to re-election doesn’t need to sweeten the pot much.

Ronald Reagan’s re-election race against Democrat Walter Mondale, says Buchanan, was easy enough that “there was no need to make promises that might be uncomfortable to keep.”