Obama’s Checklist: 60 Percent of Promises Fulfilled

President Obama has crossed off 60 percent of his 2008 campaign promises from his to-do list, he told supporters in Los Angeles Monday as he asked them to help him check off the remaining items.

“I keep a checklist in my desk, and I kind of see, all right, I made a bunch of these promises during the campaign and let me see, yes, I got that done and that one, yes.  No, that one’s not done yet. So we’ve got about 60 percent done in three years,” Obama told the crowd at the L.A. home of actors Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith. “So I’m pretty confident we can get the other 40 percent done in the next five years.”

The president listed health care reform, the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and passing consumer protections among the promises that he has fulfilled.

“A lot of the things that we promised we’d do, we’ve done… we’ve made great progress, but we’ve got so much more work to do,” the president said earlier in the night at a $35,800 per person event at the home of James and Mai Lassiter.  Items left on the president’s agenda include comprehensive immigration reform, passing energy policy “that makes sense” and, of course, fixing the economy.

To check off the remaining 40 percent, the president said lawmakers will have to put politics aside. “Obviously, in Washington, the politics that I think people are hoping for is not what they’re getting.  It’s still dysfunctional, it’s still perversely partisan.  You still have folks who seem to be more interested in the short term and the party and elections than they are in the long term and the future and the next generation,” he told the small audience which included actor Will Smith and former basketball star Magic Johnson.

The president went on to promote his jobs bill and highlight the executive actions that he is taking to spur job creation, including his new housing plan intended to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages and avoid foreclosure.

The president admitted that “this election will not be as sexy as the first one,” but he called on supporters to “grind it out.”

“I’m going to keep on making the case, I’m going to keep on pushing, but I’m also going to need to know that we’ve got a strong base of support behind us that is able to amplify our message, support our message, and get out there and have the same enthusiasm, the same passion as we did the first time,” the president said.