Even presidents don’t escape to-do lists. Granted they include more weighty items than mundane reminders to pick up groceries after work.
President Barack Obama, it turns out, keeps one in his pocket. 
“I keep in my pocket a checklist of the promises I made during the campaign, and here I am, halfway through my first term, and we’ve probably accomplished 70 percent of the things that we said we were going to do,” Obama says in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine (yes, the same publication that did a profile of General Stanley McChrystal which led to his firing).
“I’ve got two years left to finish the rest of the list, at minimum. So I think that it is very important for Democrats to take pride in what we’ve accomplished,” Obama says.
The president is in campaign mode. It’s just a month before the November election and he’s trying to drum up enthusiasm for Democratic candidates who are worried about losing their majority in Congress. And being on the cover of Rolling Stone helps the president get an audience with younger voters.
Obama talked about problem-solving and how the easy ones get handled before reaching him. “The issues that cross my desk are hard and complicated, and oftentimes involve the clash not of right and wrong, but of two rights. And you’re having to balance and reconcile against competing values that are equally legitimate.”
It was a year ago that President Barack Obama entered the White House on a platform of change – “Yes, we can.”
