As the nation celebrated its 232nd birthday, people across America were more worried about how much is “wrong right now.” The AP writes, “The nation’s psyche is battered and bruised, the sense of pessimism palpable.” An example in its report from the Optimist Club in Gilbert, AZ:

They use words such as “terrified,” “disgusted” and “scary” to describe what one calls “this mess” we Americans find ourselves in. … One member’s son is serving his second tour in Iraq. Another speaks of a daughter who’s lost her job in the mortgage industry and a son in construction whose salary was slashed. Still another mentions a friend who can barely afford gas.

Joanne Kontak, 60, an elementary school lunch aid inducted just this day as an Optimist, sums things up like this: “There’s just entirely too much wrong right now.”

Happy birthday, America? This year, we’re not so sure.

A May Washington Post-ABC News poll found that nearly “seven in 10 Americans are worried about maintaining their standard of living,” and a separate ABC poll showed economic anxiety at its “highest level on record since 1981.”

As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, the late-Sen. Jesse Helms’ ran an ad in his 1990 Senate campaign that preyed on people’s fears about affirmative action. The Politico reports that Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) senior adviser Charlie Black, who was advising Helms at the time, strongly defended the ad. When asked if there was anything improper about the ad on the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, Black said, “Of course not.” “Do you approve of that ad, Charlie,” a guest pressed. Black responded, “I advised Jesse Helms to do what he’s always done.” “[T]here is nothing racial about the campaign,” Black added.

K-Lo reminds us why she is an irreplaceable national treasure:

A totally crazy Saturday-morning thought: Wouldn’t George W. Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher? Wouldn’t it be something if his post-presidential life would up being that kind of post-service service? How’s that for a model? Who needs Harvard visiting chairs and high-end lectures? How about Crawford High? (Or wherever?) Reach out and touch the young before they are jaded, or break them of the cynicism pop culture and possibly their parents have passed down to them. Whatever you think of President Bush, he’s a likable guy in love with his country with some history and experience to share.

The best part will be when he explains to kids that the president does not, in fact, have an obligation to follow the law and can just order arbitrary detention and torture willy-nilly because, hey, we’re a nation at (undeclared, neverending) war. “That’s right kids, if President Obama wants to have your testicles crushed no law and no treaty can stop him — that’s what the constitution says!” But of course if those kind of opinions are good enough for Berkeley Law School then why not high school civics?

The WSJ reports, “In another sign of the harsh toll being exacted by the economic downturn, the number of Americans unemployed for six months or more has risen sharply over the past year and is likely to increase even more.” According to new Labor Department data, the number of people unemployed for at least 26 weeks has risen to 1.6 million — up 37% in the past year.

Krugman writes:

If so, the campaign has just taken a major turn in Mr. Obama’s favor. After all, if this campaign isn’t dominated by faux outrage over fake scandals, it will have to be about things that really did happen, like a failed economic policy and a disastrous war — both of which Mr. McCain promises will continue if he wins.

It’s a good line. But of course if Democrats are really counting on responsible, substantive news coverage to hand them the election then John McCain has things in the bag. It’s clear that the press, and thus the campaign as mediated by the press, will be dominated by some mix of fake scandals just as it always is (and if a fake scandal requires made up facts about Obama’s record, then the facts shall be made up). The question is how much does this matter? Presumably it does matter at the margin.

And I think most of us liberals are pretty traumatized by the 2000 election when the press coverage was willfully horrible and things that made a difference at the margin turned out to be hugely important. But I find it hard to believe that, in general, the overall tenor of the media’s coverage of silly campaign stories has a huge impact on election outcomes. Indeed, that’s probably one reason why the quality is so low — the stories are being produced by people who don’t really think their work matters