We've decided to delete Promise No. 13 on capital gains

Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 05:16 p.m.

We heard from many of you about our rating on a campaign promise on capital gains taxes. It was Promise No. 13 and it was our second Promise Kept rating for Obama.

The rating was unusual because Congress actually passed it before he was elected. Our reasoning was that as the nominee of the Democratic Party at the time, he was effectively the leader of the party and it seemed reasonable for him to share in the credit.

Many of you didn't like that ruling. You felt it was unfair to give Obama credit for something that not only happened before he became president, it happened before he was even elected. A typical e-mail: "Obama should not get credit for this – he had nothing to do with it – all happened prior to his election!"

First, we appreciate thoughtful, reasoned feedback, and we got lots on this one. (We're not fond of nasty comments, and don't pay much heed to them.)

So to the thoughtful people: You convinced us. We've decided to delete that promise from our database.

That will temporarily reduce our total to 509 campaign promises. But we expect to add several new ones that we've discovered in the next week or two.