ABC: 82% say wrong track

The latest ABC News poll/Washington Post poll shows how negatively the public has come to view the direction of the country under President Bush (PDF):

82% of the public thinks the country is on the wrong track, which is just one percentage point lower than the 1973 record. (John McCain, once again, is in big trouble.)

The poll also includes yet another illustration of how Bush's approval numbers have been in terminal decline since 9/11 except for a blip upward around the invasion of Iraq:

Back in early 2002, I wondered whether President Bush would become a transformational president who would define a political era like Ronald Reagan. Instead, Bush squandered his post-9/11 popularity so completely that he has provided Barack Obama with the opportunity to be a transformational president. (The situation is actually relatively parallel to the way that Jimmy Carter's presidency created the conditions under which Reagan could emerge.)

Update 5/12 9:29 PM: A closely related graph from Gallup:

Comments

[Nick Taleb]

Another point is that the generic Congressional ballot is looking more or less the same way.

[Andrew Samwick]

With regard to the first chart, why can't we be heading in the right direction on the wrong track?