The past year has been exciting to say the least!  At this time last year my website had received 86 hits for the first week of January, and ended the year with 19,428 hits, with an average of 53 hits per day.  The first week of 2012 has the number of hits at 376, with an average of 54 hits per day for the year.  The numbers are still rising!  The largest number of hits for a single day was in May of 2011, with over 400 hits!  In August I installed a Cluster Map on my website to visually show where the hits are coming from.  The results for the first four months are that the site had hits from 48 States and the District of Columbia, and 42 foreign countries!  Where did the first hit recorded on the Cluster Map come from?  Saint Cloud, Minnesota, Michelle Bachmann's home district.  Interestingly enough, the hits on the Cluster Map tended to follow the GOP candidates on the campaign trail!  No doubt they wanted to know what my response was to their latest epiphany or blunder as was normally the case!

As I predicted last year, Herman Cain was unable to exploit my campaigns success with his celebrity.  He only managed to briefly bump me from the number one spot at the top of the search engines a couple of times, and then only by creating negative publicity for him self and his campaign. Toward the end of his campaign he even resorted to “purchasing” ads on the major search engines (using other people’s money of course) to get his website listed at the top of the page.  In the end it was not enough, and my site has already retaken the top spot when searching for “Cain 2012” on Google and Bing, and is slowly creeping back to the top of Yahoo, which is usually a week or so behind the others in getting their data updated.

Several of the GOP candidates are already bragging about how many millions they have raised in campaign contributions, and along with that think about how much they are spending.  All of which was “other” people’s money.  Several have had big endorsements, and one has even made headlines in the media for being asked to pay for a high profile endorsement!  Barack Obama has made several “Official” trips on the “tax payers” dime, which appeared to be more of a campaign effort than official business.  For the Republicans and Democrats this campaign is still business as usual, so what can we expect from them if they get elected or re-elected as the case may be?  The answer is more of the same.  A lot of talking, and nothing getting done!  On the other hand, I have zero corporate sponsors, zero wealthy investors, zero campaign contributions; zero political favors owed, and I’ve told zero lies to get elected, and I have still increased my exposure several thousand times over.  Keep telling your friends, family, neighbors, and loved ones, to visit my site and spread the word!

One major thing that the Republicans and Democrats have in common is that they both are willing to spend as much of other peoples money as they can get to win this election.  They also share the same solution to solving the nation’s economic problems, tax the working class and give tax breaks to the wealthy.  They just have different methods of accomplishing it.   The republicans want to outright lower taxes for the wealthy and big corporations, while shifting the burden to working class Americans, while the Democrats want to raise taxes on everyone, just a little bit more on the wealthy with additional adjustments (deductions, low interest rate loans, and tax breaks) so that they can say they raised taxes on the wealthy, and yet the burden will still fall on the working class tax payers.  My solution to the economic problems we face in America is to restructure the tax code so that the wealthy pay the same percentage that the working class pay, and the working class has more to spend.  I know it’ll be tough on the wealthy to have put off purchasing that mega yacht, or cut back on those trips to Europe, maybe wear that $100,000 dollar outfit more than once, and yes even drink some domestic wine instead of that expensive imported stuff once in a while, but I think it will help to improve the economy if working class Americans can afford to put some meat on the table along with those potatoes (or carrots instead of meat if that is what you prefer).  The more the working class has to spend the quicker the economy will recover.  Obama has already tried twice to fix the economy with bailouts and allowing the wealthy to maintain their death grip on their wealth, and it hasn’t worked.  I think its time we should try the common sense approach and see if we can improve the economy from the bottom up, not just at the top!

At the beginning of 2011, Barack Obama had no chance of getting re-elected.  Then the GOP candidates started surfacing, many proudly announcing that God had called on them to run, and boasting their religious beliefs as a rallying cry for support.  They are running for an office that has to represent everyone in this nation, yet they openly displayed bigotry toward some segments of the American population based on “their” religious background and beliefs, and it turns out that they are less than honest about their own past deeds and conduct.  It has to make you wonder why God called on them specifically, to run for President when they clearly had such flaws in their character!  And why did he call on so many of them?  It reminds me of all the extraterrestrials that have travelled trillions of miles across the void of space to stop in the middle of nowhere to abduct someone with a history of mental disorders and/or known substance abuse problems.  Then again, I guess those first contacts might explain why the ET’s avoid contact with the public in general!  Fortunately, most of these anointed candidates have been sent back to the bottom as quickly as they soared to the top.  Unfortunately, their presence in the media over the past six months has boosted Obama’s confidence, along with his chances of getting elected to a second term.  We should all pray that doesn’t happen!

This past year has also brought the “Tea Party” to its knees.  The fringe candidates that played to the Tea Party, and one after another gained short lived stardom managed to close the door on that movement by showing how fickle and disorganized the group really is.  Not to mention exposing the very bigotry and irrational thought processes that many Democrats had complained of in the movement back in 2010.  The Republicans in Congress that thought they were empowered by the Tea Party destroyed their reputation and effectiveness through their childish attempts to control everything, which resulted in a failure to actually get anything done.  Obama and the Democrats will gladly “blame” the Republicans for the failed leadership in Washington, and the inability to actually solve the simplest of issues facing this nation.  However, all is not lost and there is still hope for November 2012.

The Republicans and Democrats have failed America, and the people are tired of their empty promises and the politics as usual.  Groups like Americans Elect are working to put Independent candidates in the national spot light, and provide them with the backing to break the “party” barrier that has pervaded in Washington for far to long.   As November approaches we need to continue spreading the word and encourage everyone that we know, to actually look at the candidates, their background, and their abilities, not just their party affiliation!  In November, let’s take back America and shout “Trendies Panic” as we send the status quo home for good! 

Richard N. Cain