When it comes to campaign promises, presidents usually try, often fail
John Grothusen, a Donald Trump supporter, is frustrated. Some people — his neighbors, his sister — are put off by some of the candidate’s promises, like mass deportation of illegal immigrants and a ban on Muslim immigration.
“Why can’t people overlook the hyperbole?’’ asks Grothusen, a member of the Dodge County, Neb., Republican Committee.
For instance, he says the border wall Trump promises to build (and force Mexico to finance) is just a concept: “Does Trump have a specific wall plan in mind? I doubt it.’’ And Trump has of late refocused his immigration ban from Muslims in general to people from nations or regions with a history of terrorism.
It all feeds the perception that many presidential campaign promises are made to be ignored, fudged or just plain broken, either because the candidate can’t keep them or doesn’t want to.
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“The average voter chalks it up to the cynical view that politicians always mislead you,’’ says John McGlennon, an elected James City County, Va., supervisor who teaches government at William & Mary.
The problem with this conventional wisdom, he adds, is it’s not true.
Political scientists who’ve studied the topic say that, candidates usually at least try to keep their promises, and those who don’t pay the price.
Take the first President Bush. Speaking at the 1988 Republican convention, he proclaimed: “Read my lips: No new taxes!’’ Yet once in office, he signed a bill that increased taxes — and was defeated for re-election in 1992.
But Grothusen has a point. Many a promise is jettisoned once the election is won.
Woodrow Wilson, re-elected in 1916 on the slogan “He kept us out of war,” led the U.S. into World War I in 1917. Lyndon Johnson campaigned against Barry Goldwater in 1964 as the peace candidate, only to entangle the nation in Vietnam. Ronald Reagan promised in 1980 to support a constitutional amendment to allow school prayer; it never went anywhere.
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Despite years of promises, the U.S. embassy in Israel is still in Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem. The nation lacks the oft-promised “comprehensive energy policy’’ and, despite many GOP vows to kill it, there is still a Department of Energy.
This year’s presidential race has featured a bumper crop of promises, not all by Trump. (See Bernie Sanders’ “political revolution"; Hillary Clinton’s vow to expand Obamacare; and Ted Cruz’ promise to abolish the IRS).
Some voters have worried that such promises will be ignored; others, that they’ll be kept.
Excuses and explanations
Why do candidates not keep promises once in the White House, given the potential political risks involved? Here are some reasons:
The president wants to keep a promise, but conditions change or new information arises.
That’s the implied disclaimer that comes with every campaign promise, including those made in 1932 by a political genius.
In that presidential campaign, Franklin D. Roosevelt attacked Hoover for excessive spending — even though economists now agree that more government spending was needed to pull the nation out of the Depression. FDR himself adopted that tactic after he was elected.
In 1940, Roosevelt promised voters he American boys would not be "sent into any foreign wars’’ — a vow he knew to be highly provisional and that was voided by the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Bush, similarly, found after taking office in 1989 that government revenues were lower than expected, and felt he had to go along with an upper income tax increase demanded by Democrats. But many economists say that tax increase, so costly to Bush in ‘92, laid the foundation for prosperity under his successor, Bill Clinton.
Today, President Obama’s critics argue that his eagerness to honor a campaign promise to get out of Iraq created a power vacuum that led to the rise of the Islamic State.
“Campaign promises are meant to be broken,’’ says Patrick Maney, a Boston College political historian, “and in many cases, should be.’’
The president tries to keep a promise, but can’t because of opposition.
Although candidates typically promise a result (such as a balanced budget) they’re usually implying an effort, because the president isn’t a dictator.
“That’s the reality of politics,’’ says Meg Jacobs, author of Panic at the Pump, a study of ’70s energy politics. “You can have an ambitious agenda, but you have to take it to the Hill.’’
In 1976, presidential candidate Jimmy Carter wooed Texas voters and donors by promising to deregulate the oil and gas industry; in office, he was blocked by liberals in his own party.
The president pays lip service to a promise, but can’t or won’t expend the political capital.
How hard does a president really try to honor a promise? In 1981, Reagan became the first to propose a constitutional amendment on school prayer, but he never made its passage a top priority.
On the other hand, Bill and Hillary Clinton in 1993 put everything they had into their promised revamping health care -- and failed.
The president never intended to keep a promise.
Richard Nixon, campaigning in 1968, claimed he had a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War. Most historians believe he did not, and in any case, U.S. combat forces were not withdrawn for another five years.
Similarly, Sen. John F. Kennedy promised in 1960 that if elected he’d close a “missile gap” with the Soviet Union that he knew did not exist.
The president regards a promise merely as a negotiating gambit. .
The author of The Art of the Deal is breaking new ground here, having downgraded his signature Muslim entry ban to a “suggestion” — until the Orlando nightclub shooting, when he re-emphasized the need for it before seeming to walk it back yet again.
Trump once told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that voters want “unpredictability,’’ which may extend to how — or if — he’ll keep a promise.
That said, it can be hard to decide whether a promise was kept.
Politifact, an online arbiter of accuracy, has five gradations: kept, compromised, broken, stalled and “in the works.’’
“Promises are often absolute, whereas democratic politics is about compromises,’’ observes John Baick, an historian who teaches at Western New England University in Springfield, Mass.
On some level, voters (like John Grothusen) understand this, and discount campaign promises accordingly.
“Promises don’t drive elections,’’ says Maney. “It’s the candidate’s vision of the direction for the country that voters look for.’’ He says it’s not so much Trump’s specific promises that attract supporters, but the message he sends by making them: I’ll be tough on immigration and terrorism.
This helps explain why most broken promises aren’t as costly as Bush’s tax pledge.
President Obama, for instance, has paid little political price for never making good on his 2008 campaign pledges to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp or call the Turkish slaughter of Armenians during World War I genocide. (Overall, Politifact says Obama has kept 45% of his campaign promises and broken 22%, with the rest somewhere in between.)
The X factor is the importance, not the letter, of the promise; voters care more about their taxes than a prison in Cuba.
‘To the moon …’
Grothusen sits in his living room in Fremont, Neb., and tries to understand why some people take Trump literally.
“His rhetoric isn’t bothering anybody,” he says, referring to party regulars like himself. “We take it with a grain of salt.’’
He has an analogy — The Honeymooners, the 1950s TV sitcom starring Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows as Ralph and Alice Kramden, a working class couple who argue a lot.
He says that if you only saw one scene in which an angry Ralph, fist cocked, bellows, “To the moon, Alice!’’ you’d think he was a wife beater.
“If you’ve seen a few episodes, you realize he’s harmless,’’ Grothusen says. “He loves her.’’