Americans Are Unhappy With America - USA Today / Gallup Poll

This USA Today article reads:

"In all, 72% of those surveyed in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Oct. 12-14 say they are dissatisfied with how things are going in the USA while just 26% are satisfied. Not since April have even one-third of Americans been happy with the country's course, the longest national funk in 15 years."

This sparks the sign of political change. But in what direction? Could it mean victory for Barack Obama or Ron Paul? It's hard to tell from the article's comments. But here's the rest of it:

raq dominates the political agenda. In the poll, four in 10 Americans volunteer that the Iraq war will be one of the most important issues determining their vote in 2008. That's more than twice as many who cite the second-ranking issue: health care.

Six in 10 call the invasion of Iraq a mistake, equal to the highest levels of anti-war feeling during the Vietnam conflict. Despite reports of progress after this year's rise in U.S. force levels, a majority say the situation in Iraq is getting worse for the United States. Only 16% say it's getting better.

In conversations at four locales across the nation — at a farmer's market in Salem, Ore., outside a public library in Phoenix, at a shopping mall and bus stop in downtown Milwaukee and in a roundtable at the New Jersey shore — Americans struggled over what to do next in Iraq.

Not one of several dozen people interviewed expressed optimism that the next president, whoever is elected, will be able to turn things around militarily or to extricate U.S. troops without significant complications, even chaos.

"The next person coming in, it's going to take him at least eight years to clean up," predicts Geraldine Buie, 49, a food-service worker in Milwaukee who wants U.S. troops withdrawn now.

"On the one hand, people say we should pull out, but if we just pull out, everything will collapse and we'll have done nothing," says Antonio Carlos, 24, a student in Phoenix. "We've been committed for six years. Are we going to give up already? But at the same time, do we have the money (to continue)? And do we want our people over there dying left and right?"

The satisfaction divide

Not everyone has a dismal view of the future, of course.

"I think things are going along fine," said Tanya Rider, 32, a medic from Salem, though she worries about her brother and best friend, both deployed to Iraq. "The job market is going up. There's less homeless people." (The National Alliance to End Homelessness says the difficulty of counting homeless people makes it hard to assess whether their numbers are falling.)

Predictably, those who rate the economy as good are much happier with the country's direction than those who rate it as poor. Affluent Americans are more satisfied than those with lower incomes. Conservatives are more satisfied than liberals, and men more than women.

Even in the most optimistic demographic category, however, a majority is dissatisfied with the country's direction — including, for instance, 55% of Republicans. Among Democrats, the conclusion is almost universal: 84% say things are on the wrong track.

"The war in Iraq is clearly a major drag on the public's sense of how the country's doing," says Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. "And there's a kind of longer-term impact of the economy. Overall the economy is doing quite well but the sense of insecurity, the sense of anxiety of what the future might hold — that's having a downward effect."

Assessments of the current economy, while downbeat, are no worse than they were one year before the presidential elections in 1992, 1996 and 2004.

What's driving today's negative mood is pessimism about the future: Two-thirds predict economic conditions are getting worse, by far the highest number since 1992.

At a roundtable discussion in Neptune, N.J., only one of the 11 participants was looking for a job; the rest were retired or employed, most in jobs they like.

But Bob Cohen, 61, said he was "scared looking around the corner at the demographics of the country" and the pressure the looming retirement of the baby boom generation will put on Social Security.

Tish Ferguson, 48, a global recruiting manager, says she "works in a market where we're worried about a recession."

Eugene Kelsey, 82, expressed alarm about the impact of illegal immigration on American culture.

Americans are glummer about the economy than economists are. By the traditional measure — back-to-back quarters of economic contraction — the nation isn't in a recession. Yet more than one-third of those surveyed say it is. Four in 10 say a recession is likely during the next year.

For many Americans, good economic news about steady growth and low unemployment and inflation has been overshadowed by the rising cost of gasoline, turmoil in the housing market and uncertainties about health care coverage.

"I keep hearing there are positive indicators in the economy," says Dave Hendrick, 30, an Americorps volunteer in Milwaukee. "I have a hard time understanding that when I see skyrocketing foreclosure rates."

There are significant differences in views of the economy by region. The mood is brightest in the Southwest and the Rocky Mountain states, where 46% rated the economy as good in an aggregation of seven Gallup Polls taken since May.

The mood is darkest in the Great Lakes, where just 31% called the economy good. Jobs are a big reason as the region tries to recover from the loss of manufacturing plants. Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the nation; Ohio the fifth highest.

People in the upper Midwest are "frustrated by the (national) debt, frustrated with the war, frustrated with the health care system that seems to be crumbling," says former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, who in August abandoned a bid for the Republican presidential nomination. "They want somebody to get something done. They don't like to see problems shunted aside, and that's what they see in Washington."

Both the president and Congress get historically low ratings, another sign of unhappiness with the nation's course and indicator of possible political upheaval ahead.

Since World War II, no party has managed to hold the White House when the incumbent president had a job-approval rating below 45% one year before the election. Bush's approval rating now: 32%.

Congress fares even worse. Its approval rating in August dipped to 18%, equaling the low point in the history of Gallup. It's now bumped up to a still-dismal 29%.

Ethics scandals and opposition to the Iraq war contributed to a Democratic takeover of the House and Senate in last November's elections, but Congress' ratings haven't significantly improved since then. Dissatisfaction is widespread and bipartisan: 76% of those surveyed say Congress has accomplished "not too much" or "nothing at all" this year. Among those, 73% blame both parties equally.