Scary.

This line from F. Rich caught my eye:

There’s nothing vague about the public’s desire for national renewal in 2008, with a reviled incumbent in the White House and only 19 percent of the population finding the country on the right track, according to the last Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll.

I know one's instinct is to view that figure as low, but the actual number this represents should make us all pessimists. If we take the most recent population estimates -- 301,139,947 (as of July 2007) -- we're looking at 57,216,589 people.

57,216,589 is a lot of people.

I'll remember that the next time I, if just for a moment, start to imagine Barack Obama in the White House.