July 4, 2010
By Herman Cain
I did it!
I did not read, watch or listen to any news stories about what is going on in this country for seven days. There were no exceptions! Nada! Nor did I do any of my radio shows.
I took a vacation from the problems of America. I came back relaxed!
When I re-engaged with the news I realized just how stressed out America is with its problems. It was like looking at America’s problems from 50,000 feet and seeing the forest and not just the daily “trees” in the news. Although there was nothing new in the news, seven major stress points appeared to have only gotten worse in seven days.
The Gulf oil tragedy got worse. The first thing that flashed on the news program I watched was “Day 71” and the oil spill was still gushing. The oil was threatening the Louisiana shoreline, and the federal response was still slow and bureaucratic.
The Obama Administration is still in denial about the seriousness of Arizona’s southern border insecurity. Instead of providing serious support for Arizona and other border states, the administration put up some signs near the border warning people of the dangers, and pressed forward with their legal challenge to the new Arizona immigration law.
The war in Afghanistan has a new general in charge, but the outlook for “victory” is still bleak. It will be difficult even for General Petraeus because it is widely recognized that the Afghanistan government is corrupt, and the “rules of engagement” to protect civilians increases the dangers to our troops. The Taliban has only one rule of engagement: Kill!
The American debt crisis continues to get worse with the administration and the Democrat-led Congress still on a spending binge. Our crisis here is made worse by the situation in Europe, which could trigger another worldwide financial meltdown and the USA would not be spared.
A jobless economic recovery is not a recovery. As the administration continues to say the “stimulus” is working, the facts continue to indicate otherwise. Unemployment for June was just reported to be 9.5 percent with June job losses at 125,000, while 650,000 people dropped out of the labor force so they were not counted. Nearly 15 million people are still unemployed.
But President Obama says “we are headed in the right direction.”
The confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan were just Washington political theater. Political analysts believe she will be confirmed and will tip the balance of the Supreme Court to be more liberal-leaning than Constitutional-leaning.
This seventh major stress point was an “ah-ha” scary moment. Although the president’s approval ratings are down, the scariest statistic is the 45 percent of the public who think he’s doing a good job. Who are these people?
This means that all Obama has to do to get re-elected is to swoon six more percentage points of voters with a slick speech or political ad and he wins. That’s scary. It also means that those of us who are not part of the scary-45 percent have our work cut out for us.
The good news is that the numbers are in our favor. Conservatives out-number liberals two-to-one according to an ongoing Gallup poll, and moderates outnumber liberals nearly two-to-one.
We have to work harder at educating, mobilizing and inspiring people to vote the right way in November 2010 and 2012, because America’s problems are not going to take a vacation.
