Carter-Reagan, and widespread "wrong direction" sentiment

[swag]

Somebody had a good thread yesterday about which prior elections had the best parallels to this one. Lots of good suggestions and parallels brought up, particularly 1980 and, of course, 1992.

Me, I've gotta go with 1980 simply because I am hearing from tons of unexpected people the same sentiment I heard in 1980, what with the Iranian hostage crisis (birthplace of "Nightline"), high gasoline prices, the whole litany:

"We need a change. It's clear that the country is going in the wrong direction."

This is pretty much what my father said to me when I was pelting him with shit for voting for Reagan.

And this is what I'm hearing now, but with even greater frequency and intensity.

All anecdotal, of course, and I don't intend this to be another "Bush is Toast," post, because nothing could be further from the truth. Bush is not toast unless we toast him, and even then, GOP has a lot of ways to break a good toaster.

Just wanted to again point out the "wrong direction" meme, if you will, and indicate my feeling that 1980 is the year to look at for parallels in the voting public's mood.

[JohnnyFianna1]

1. In 1980 Raygun''s campaign and George H.W. Bush commited treason

against the U.S. we don't have that option

[swag]

2. Catwoman linked some interesting AP poll results related to this

"(ALL ADULTS)


1. Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction or are they off on the wrong track?


_Right direction, 39 percent (41)


_Wrong track, 59 percent (56)


_Don't know-refused to answer, 2 percent (3)"

[PROGRESSIVE1]

3. So we could win big then.

[swag]

4. One would hope

As someone said on DU months ago, while linking to the pollingreport.com "National Barometer" trendlines, the trend is not his friend.