Day406 Sunday 10/09/11

ran 3.0 miles

Today ends week fifty-eight of running against Obama. I ran 20.9 miles this week, averaging 2.99 miles per day.

Herman Cain is Someone Else. The Someone Else in 2012 we have all been talking about is Herman Cain. This man is committed to his ideas and I think he strikes the average voter as a candidate who is extremely driven to achieve the needs our country is painfully aching for.

It is very simple to not be Barack Obama. This is the reason that so many American’s want Someone Else. Someone Else, at this point has no name. Someone Else could be a plank of wood or a yo-yo. We just simply want Someone Else.

But, to go beyond that general declaration, that unspecified urgency to get this man out of the White House by any common-sense electoral process possible, Herman Cain is the man for the job. He is the only unwavering candidate out there who is truly criticizing the protestors in the streets and delivering a message of tough love that so many Americans, including myself, need and want to hear.

Barack Obama wants to give Americans money that they did not earn and in many, many cases do not deserve. Herman Cain advocates a far stronger and enduring message that if you want something, no matter how far away it is from your grasps, tie up your red, white, and blue laces, pick up your chin and straighten your back, and go do something with yourself. This has always been America’s one single requirement for anyone to succeed.

Here are a few quotes from Herman Cain regarding “Occupy America” or “American fall” as I like to call it.

“When a reporter asked me the other day, well, what do you think about those demonstrations up on Wall Street, I said, first of all, Wall Street didn’t write these failed economic policies -- the White House did,”

“Why don’t you move the demonstrations to the White House?”

“Wall Street didn’t write those failed policies, Wall Street didn’t spend a trillion dollars,” said Cain. “Wall Street isn’t asking to spend another $450 billion. It didn’t work with a trillion. It’s not gonna’ work with $450 billion. You can demonstrate all you want on Wall Street. The problem is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!”

868.9 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day41.

Day405 Saturday 10/08/11

Is this what you want America to look like in 2012?

ran 3.1 miles
Remember Wisconsin? It was back in February. Unions organized protestors to wreak havoc on the capitol in opposition to state legislation that cut back their ability to collectively bargain and forced them to start paying more into their pensions, or 401k plans, like the rest of us. That was eight months ago and what have you heard about it lately?

You haven’t heard anything because the protest failed. Protestors trashed their capitol building and forced even more tax dollars into unnecessary expenditure.

The protests going on currently are much of the same. The only thing these people are achieving is to waste more of their own time than they already have by not moving forward in their own lives and to waste more tax dollars to clean up all of their misguided frustration. They are exacting nothing more than wasted time and maybe a picture from the media to remind them for the rest of their lives how they had one single moment fighting everything that keeps this nation moving forward. That’s something to be proud of.

And our president is all for this. He’ll take anything he can get right now because he has no leg to stand on for a 2012 campaign---except for promises to give free money to people who have no desire to sweat or earn the things they own. This practice panned out pretty well for Europe. Cuba is a nice spot to live. And if you really want to feel the adrenalin that the simple freedom to protest can amplify, go to China and stand on a street with a soapbox and a sign. See how that works out for you.

871.9 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day40.

Day404 Friday 10/07/11

ran 1.4 miles

I am the 53%

875.0 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day39.

Day403 Thursday 10/06/11

ran 2.8 miles
Here’s something from June of 2011 I had completely forgotten about, but stands out as one of many reasons why Barack Obama is not the right man for the job. And, as an aside, I’m tired of people saying Republicans are blocking Obama from getting anything done---then twisting that into the notion that Republicans are blocking American progress. Barack Obama has been blocking American progress since day one and the reason Republicans are such a barrier to his agenda is because American voters elected so many men and women who are committed to conservative principles in the mid-term elections to do exactly what they are doing. They are performing their jobs, and their task is to control his damage by minimizing it until 2012. Moving forward, do you remember the ATM machines story? Our president dug pretty deep into his bag of unused excuses for this one. Allow me to stir your memory:

"There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don't go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate."

Lame. That's like blaming Edison for inventing the light bulb while your still dipping wicks in wax to make candles.

And here are just a few other glances back at Barack Obama’s presidency (www.commentarymagazine.com):

• Under Obama’s stewardship, we have lost 2.2 million jobs (and 900,000 full-time jobs in the last four months alone). He is now on track to have the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era.

• The unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent v. 7.8 percent the month Obama took office.

• July marked the 30th consecutive month in which the unemployment rate was above the 8 percent level, the highest since the Great Depression.

• Since May 2009 — roughly 14 weeks into the Obama administration — the unemployment rate has been above 10 percent during three months, above 9 percent during 22 months, and above 8 percent during two months.

• Chronic unemployment is worse than during the Great Depression.

• The youth employment rate is at the lowest level since records were first kept in 1948.

• The share of the eligible population holding a job has declined to the lowest level since the early 1980s.

• The housing crisis is worse than in the Great Depression. (Home values are worth roughly one-third less than they were five years ago.)

• The rate of economic growth under Obama has been only slightly higher than the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression. From the first quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011, we experienced five consecutive quarters of slowing growth. America’s GDP for the second quarter of this year was a sickly 1.0 percent; in the first quarter, it was 0.4 percent.

• Fiscal year 2011 will mark the third straight year with deficits in excess of $1 trillion. Prior to the Obama presidency, we had never experienced a deficit in excess of $1 trillion.

• During the Obama presidency, America has increased its debt by $4 trillion.

• That is to say, Obama has achieved in two-and-a-half years what it took George W. Bush two full terms in office to achieve — and Obama, when he was running for president, slammed Bush’s record as being “unpatriotic.”

• America saw its credit rating downgraded for the first time in history under the Obama presidency.

• Consumer confidence has plunged to the lowest level since the Carter presidency.

• The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Obama’s watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.

• A record number of Americans now rely on the federal government’s food stamps program. More than 44.5 million Americans received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, a 12 percent increase from one year ago.

All you people protesting in the streets need to quit occupying America and to start embracing America. No government will ever do this for you.

876.4 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day38.

Day402 Wednesday 10/05/11

Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

ran 4.6 miles
“I can’t speak for the people out there because I don’t know who they are and exactly what they’re demonstrating against. I can argue the case for their right to express their outright frustration with what’s going on.”

Ron Paul

These guys have every right to dress up like they’re on the video set of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video, but it is going to take more substance than this and some worthy ideas beyond Anarchism or Communism to make a real difference. These zombies are focusing frustration on 1% of the nation and casually lumping together the other 99% as have-nots. There is much I do not have and little that I do, but I am proud of how hard I work for that which I do have. I have little in common with the views these protestors share and I think their approach to making a point is both childish and ineffective. I am not 1 of their 99%.

879.2 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day37.

Day401 Tuesday 10/04/11

ran 2.0 miles

Occupy Los Angeles. Occupy Tulsa. Occupy Houston. Occupy Seattle. Occupy Boston. Occupy New York City. Occupy Denver…

Occupy America.

This is the progressive version of, or solution to, the Tea Party. If you can’t beat them, don’t join them; make your own haphazard party of individuals who have absolutely no solution to any of the problems being protested.

After all of the slander the Tea Party has endured from the left, they continue to seek definitive, well-articulated solutions to the problems they find in the federal government (the Tea Party did not want more taxes so they and others who do not even identify themselves as Tea Party backers put men and women into Congress in 2010 who promised to not raise taxes, the Tea Party wants no part of Obamacare so they and others who do not even identify themselves as Tea Party backers sought law suits and are pursuing an interstate compact to avoid Barack Obama’s legislation, the Tea Party and others who do not even identify themselves as Tea Party backers do not understand why illegal aliens are so entitled when so many perfectly legal citizens are struggling so unfairly...

The list goes on and on, and here is the difference between Occupy America and the Tea Party. One group does not have any solutions for the problems they identify. The other does. One group is getting arrested in the streets by the hundreds. The other is not. One group wants four more years of Barack Obama. The other wants Someone Else. One group wants failed Socialistic governance. The other wants America.

Point is, the Tea Party has and continues to take the necessary steps outlined by the laws we have set in place, through civility, problem-solving, and sheer logic to bring about the changes they and so many others desire from the inner-most cores of their Constitutional hearts.

Occupy America, by the name alone, suggests and has exhibited nothing more than a culmination of the same chaos we have been experiencing for the last three years. Their cause and their inability to even articulate into words what exactly it is that they want is a testimony of how frustrating and unexplainable times are right now in America.

When I was twenty-years-old, I would have loved to have been a part of this movement and to take to the streets with a clever sign and a clenched fist in the air, just to say, “Yeah, man, I was there. It was awesome. We really stuck it to the man!”

But I haven’t been twenty in thirteen years and I no longer have the patience for actions that serve no purpose except to disrupt the progress of an entire nation.

We are one year, one month, and two days away from possibly saving this country. Someone Else 2012!

883.8 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day36.

Day400 Monday 10/03/11

400 Days!!!

ran 4.0 miles
American country music treasure Hank Williams, Jr. apparently overstepped the boundaries we as a nation have set for being politically correct today. While appearing on a Fox News program this morning Williams made a comment that has gotten him pulled from ESPN’s Monday Night Football opening tonight.

Williams said he thought the so-called golf summit between Barack Obama and John Boehner, which occurred last summer, was “one of the biggest political mistakes ever”.

He went on to say, “It would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli leader) Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Afterwards, when asked to explain his comment, Williams said Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the “enemy”. He explained that it seemed ludicrous to him that they would play golf together. He claimed Obama and Boehner “are polar opposites and it made no sense. They don’t see eye-to-eye and never will.”

That is a very matter-of-fact observation, in my opinion, but it could have been worded with far more taste. Perhaps a comparison, more sensitive such as “It would be like Nancy Pelosi playing Bridge with Sarah Palin”. No insults on either side of that comparison. Just two individuals I think we can all agree have no desire to sit across from one another at a table.

Here are a few stats and polls from Rasmussen Reports:

• Barack Obama’s presidential index rating shows that 20% of American voters strongly approve of his performance while 42% strongly disapprove, giving Obama a presidential index rating of –22.

• Overall, 44% of voters at least somewhat approve of Obama’s performance while 54% at least somewhat disapprove.

885.8 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day35.

Day399 Sunday 10/02/11

images from LATimes.com and Chicagoist.com

ran 2.9 miles
Protests in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston...the east is taking to the streets with an Arab spring while the west is preparing for an American fall.

Today ends week fifty-seven of running against Obama. I ran 25.0 miles this week, averaging 3.57 miles per day.

889.8 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day34.

Day398 Saturday 10/01/11

ran 3.4 miles
It’s been over two weeks since our president proposed his American Jobs Act, a bill with a $447 billion price tag on the backs of taxpayers. It is yet another stimulus package serving as one more ingredient in Barack Obama’s stew that is tasteless and hard to swallow. Even the Democrat-led Senate is reluctant to pass Barack Obama’s jobs bill. That is a statement that demands many questions on leadership. It is a given that the Republican-led House only wants to poke at this thing with a ten-foot pole, but the left appears to be imploding under Barack Obama.

Looking back at the mid-term elections, when so many liberal members of Congress were fired by American voters, based on their support of our president’s actions, one can only wonder how many Democrats are now willing to stand in the front lines to defend their president and quite possibly sacrifice their careers in Washington D.C. while the leader of their party sneaks off to Timbuktu for another extravagant vacation on our ticket.

On a lighter note, I have been compiling stats and facts about each individual state to use as a tool for when the 2012 presidential election finally arrives. Quick facts like how many electoral votes each state has, what their presidential voting history is, who their Congressmen and women are, stuff like that. So, here are some facts about the state of Tennessee:

• Tennessee was the sixteenth state to join the union on June 1, 1796, seven years before Ohio and four years after Kentucky.

• Population, as of 2010, is 6,346,105.

• Senators are Lamar Alexander (R) and Bob Corker (R).

• Representatives are Phil Roe (R), John Duncan (R), Chuck Fleischmann (R), Scott DesJarlais (R), Jim Cooper (D), Diane Black (R), Marsha Blackburn (R), Stephen Fincher (R) and Steve Cohen (D).

• Tennessee has eleven electoral votes. Historically, the state voted almost exclusively blue from Reconstruction until after World War II. Since the 1950s Tennessee has trended red with few exceptions. Since 1928 Tennessee has chosen the winning candidate in every election except for 1960 and 2008. John McCain defeated Barack Obama 57% to 42% in 2008.

892.7 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day33.

Day397 Friday 09/30/11

13 months!!!

ran 3.4 miles
Today marks 13 months of running against Obama. Yesterday I ran mile 1,200 and in 3 days I will hit day 400. I look at it as 13 months, 1,200 miles, and 400 days worth of reasons to get this guy out of the White House.

However, Barack Obama's departure from the White House may come earlier than scheduled. In an interview with Sean Hannity today, Dick Morris, Bill Clinton’s former campaign manager, speculated that Barack Obama will bow out of the 2012 presidential race under the pressure of Democrat leaders. Morris stated that Democrats no longer have confidence in Obama’s leadership skills.

“I asked a top Democratic strategist the other day and he thought that it was possible that, in January, Harry Reid comes to Obama and says, ‘Look you cost us control of the House last year, you’re going to cost us control of the Senate this year. For the good of the party you have to step aside’” said Morris.

Makes you wonder. This idea seems farfetched at this point in time, but it would certainly open up a whole new field of play for Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton, to jump into the presidential race.

Meanwhile, back in present times, Democratic Strategist (whatever that is), Cornell Belcher has accused Herman Cain of being racist. Belcher, a black man, accused Cain, another black man, of being a bigot and a racist towards black people for suggesting that the left has “brainwashed” the black community.

Belcher’s best argument in his interview with Anderson Cooper was when he compared Herman Cain’s words to a scenario in which Belcher might suggest that “all Jewish people are brainwashed”. He claimed that if he were to make a statement like that then he would not be invited back to CNN and the public would condemn him. The one blatantly obvious detail he is missing is that if he is not Jewish then of course he has no right to make such a claim because he has never walked in their shoes. But if he is then he has a right to express that opinion. Herman Cain is black and he is expressing his thoughts about the black community, as he has every right to do.

896.1 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day32.

Day396 Thursday 09/29/11

ran 4.2 miles

Today makes 1,200 miles!!! Thanks for reading and following the blog. You can follow Running Against Obama on facebook, too. Give it a “like”!

899.5 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day31.

Day395 Wednesday 09/28/11

ran 3.8 miles

Herman Cain has always been the Republican presidential candidate I have admired most and backed the most. He has advancing ideas, a proven track record, and, while his greatest weakness is foreign affairs, he advocates listening to appointed Generals and leaders who are actually in the trenches or in the nations where decisions need to be made and then reacting accordingly. Ronald Reagan did an astounding job with the U.S.S.R. and he was a celebrity, turned governor, turned president.

I see an aura surrounding Herman Cain as the man that brings this divided country back together. Barack Obama has literally zero to campaign on, based on his achievements, and all that is left is to further divide this country in order to get reelected. Telling blacks to quit grumbling and whining and to put on their marching boots is a form of dividing a national population that is struggling together. Not telling Hispanics, Asians, and whites to do the same is…one-sided for lack of a better term.

In a selfish way, aside from the many genuine reasons he deserves, I like Mr. Cain for the reason that he would eliminate the race card that sits so readily available in the sleeve of all who carry the liberal playbook in their back pockets. If Herman Cain were to become the National Republican Nominee, people like Van Jones, Cynthia McKinney, Sheila Jackson Lee, and even our own president would be unable to further divide this great nation with racial excuses instead of united goals to succeed.

One glaring example of incompetent rhetoric some of these above-mentioned individuals utter daily is the accusation that the Tea Party is racist and that it wants to weaken the middle class. For one thing, the Tea Party admires Herman Cain and, for another, the color of his skin has nothing to do with the highly productive problem-solving logic he brings to the table. Furthermore, those who oppose Barack Obama are, I think, as blind to his Caucasian half as they are to his black half, and they, and myself, simply see an inexperienced man who has no place in the Oval Office.

The picture at the top of the page is from the Berkeley Bake Sale that occurred today. Republican students at the university put this bake sale on and they charged cupcakes at different rates based on ethnicity and gender. On the surface, it appears simple to pull out the race card and to bobble your head around with assuming remarks. But if you dig a bit deeper it is actually a brilliant idea these students came up with. They made a small scale replica of our nation at large in regards to issues like affirmative action all the way to some states’ decisions to give illegal aliens huge tuition breaks. Here is the full story and you form your own opinion, but I think what they did was effective, brilliant, and extremely low budget in contrast to the immense message they were conveying.

903.7 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day30.

Day394 Tuesday 09/27/11

ran 3.8 miles

Let’s assume Barack Obama gets another four years. We are still a little over one year out from when that decision will be made but take inventory of the last three years. At this point, three years later, our president’s and his counterparts’ greatest excuse for America’s grim circumstances is to point out how much worse things could have been if he had not made the decisions he had. Mere speculation of a nonexistent present and future is his best argument to justify the further decline America has endured since he has been our president.

So, let’s fast-forward…two years. It is September of 2013. Barack Obama is still our president. What pictures come to mind of what is going on in America?

I see injury beyond repair on an American landscape that fought hard for a pivotal change in 2012, but unfortunately lost. I am speaking hypothetically, of course, but 2012 is a critical crossroads and Barack Obama is spending this presidential term either setting a stage for a real hero to emerge, upon his own dismissal, and to lift this country back up to where it belongs or he is spending these four years blazing a path toward an America that is due to arrive in Greece soon.

Barack Obama has shown through his actions that what he seeks is to level the American playing field, and the world playing field if he can find a way. His vision is not American. Everyone shoots par when they golf. No scores are kept. Second-graders and college students alike all receive “C”s regardless of how badly they might want “A”s. What drive is there to open a small business or to revolutionize an industry if there is no reward? Why pay for medical school and strive to be a doctor when the medical field lacks all competitiveness and quality? You can apply this theme to any situation. Why do anything above and beyond if the reward is always average?

If our president wanted to lift this country out of the rut it is stuck in he could easily achieve this goal by utilizing our natural resources, drilling in particular, untying the governmental straight jackets that stifle the private sector, quit giving so many tax dollars to nations that despise us, abandon this fifty-state blanket health care law that will have the same effect on our already weakened economy as tossing a ten-pound medicine ball on an ant, and just get out of the way, federal government.

Someone Else 2012!

907.5 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day29.

Day393 Monday 09/26/11

ran 3.5 miles
It looks like the constitutionality of Obamacare is finally going to be judged by the Supreme Court soon. The Obama administration deferred requesting the 11th Circuit Court re-hear the health reform case today. This gesture shows that Barack Obama wants to go straight to the Supreme Court to decide whether this law is constitutional. If the Supreme Court decides to hear the case immediately then the ruling would more than likely be determined in the heat of next year’s presidential election.

This law suit was brought forth by 26 states, the National Federation of Independent Business, and several individuals. And, regardless of how the Supreme Court rules, even more states are working toward a health care compact, which would free individual states from having to participate in Barack Obama’s fifty state blanket health care law.

911.3 miles to go.

Here is what happened one year ago on Day28.