Poll: Optimism plummeting

Via Cillizza at the Post:

The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll suggests the country is slipping back into the pessimism it felt before last year's presidential election with just one in three American saying the country is headed in the right direction while 55 percent said it was off on the wrong track. Less than three in ten (27 percent) said life would be better for their children than it is for them and six in ten agreed with the statement that the country was in a "state of decline." Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who helps conduct the NBC/WSJ poll, called the results evidence that "optimism has crashed through the floor board." Remember that much of Obama's appeal is centered on the ideas of hope and change; if voters see his administration as overseeing more of the same, there could be considerable backlash from voters against Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.