Day124 Friday 12/31/10

ran 3.3 miles

• Iowa was the twenty-ninth state to join the union on December 28, 1846, two years before Wisconsin and one year after Texas.

• Population, as of 2009, is 3,007,856.

• Senators are Chuck Grassley (R) and Tom Harkin (D).

• Representatives are Leonard Boswell (D), Bruce Braley (D), Steve King (R), Tom Latham (R), and David Loebsack (D).

• Iowa has six electoral votes. It lost one of its votes in the 2010 Census Reapportionment, leaving six total electoral votes through the 2020 presidential election. Historically, the state has voted red from the Civil War through 1988, barring five Democratic exceptions. Currently, Iowa leans blue. Barack Obama beat John McCain by a popular vote of 54% to 44% in 2008.

The year 2010 hangs by a final thread shadowed by the opportunities, chances and risks of the impending year 2011. Mere hours are left to take inventory of the past year and to gain perspective on the details that defined the year. It will not be long before baby-kissing, mudslinging, and scandalous campaigning for the 2012 presidential election will fill the ears and eyes of Americans everywhere, sensationalizing political fodder through every available media source. It’s all highly entertaining to watch these politicians posturing and making promises they cannot keep, feeding their insurmountable egos with camera time and interviews, until someone like Barack Obama actually somehow gets elected. It’s like when your mom used to say it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. America is hurting. Our president and our Congress are standing over America poking and prodding her bruises and wounds with the genuine belief that this will comfort her pain.

Be careful tonight while celebrating New Year’s Eve and have a great night. And when you wake up in the morning, recovering from your hangover, buckle your political seatbelt because these next two years are going to be the most defining in American politics in a very long time. The new Congress will be sworn in, presidential campaigning will begin, and November 6, 2012, though far away, will be the last opportunity to make Barack Obama a one-term president.

1,772.0 miles to go.