The promise.  It’s long been a staple of political campaigns and it’s easy to understand why.  Candidates need to find a way to connect with voters, to cut through the messaging clutter, and nothing does the trick quite like a simple, direct “this is what I’m going to do” statement.  The promise, after all, is about much more than words.  It reflects a candidate’s vision and confidence.  I mean, who wants to vote for someone who’s not-so-sure what the future holds?  We want our candidates to be bold, decisive, and optimistic.

There’s just one danger.  What if a candidate gets elected and fails to deliver on a promise or falls short of it?  Is a broken promise fatal or do voters today see the promise as a different animal: more a statement of goals and aspirations rather than a contract with (as we say in television) no “outs”?

They’re questions worth asking, because in Wisconsin’s 2014 race for governor, a promise will almost certainly be front and center.  It’s the one Governor Scott Walker made in February of 2010, when he said Wisconsin would create 250,000 new private sector jobs in his first term in office (fewer Wisconsinites are likely to remember Democratic candidate Tom Barrett’s goal of creating 180,000 new jobs).  Then-candidate Walker based his pledge on numbers that had been achieved by former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson in his first four years, and he repeated it again and again to voters and media around the state.  When Walker appeared on my “UpFront” television show in late February, I asked him, “Is this a campaign promise?  Something you want to be held to?” Walker didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely,” he replied.  “To me, 250,000 is a minimum.  Just a base.”