Poll: America on the Wrong Track

Fri, April 04, 2008 - 9:45 AM

If you need a number to tell you why John McCain is done making any glowing mentions of President George W. Bush for a while, the New York Times has it – 81. Eighty-one percent of Americans surveyed in a recent CBS News/New York Times poll said the country has “gotten off on the wrong track.”

The whole right track/wrong track question is often seen as an indicator of how voters will act regarding an incumbent’s reelection. Sixty-five percent of respondents said the country was “on the wrong track” at this time in 2004, but Bush won reelection that year.

McCain, who came around to support Bush’s tax cuts and has been a constant supporter of the surge strategy in Iraq, now has to portray himself as a the candidate who can change the direction of the country while the Democratic Party tries to paint his candidacy as a third term of a Bush presidency.

--Neil Simon