Belief that country heading in right direction is at all-time low (CNN)

By Paul Steinhauser
CNN Deputy Political Director

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- On the day that President-elect Barack Obama visited the White House, a new national poll illustrates the daunting challenges he faces when it becomes his home next year.

Only 16 percent of those questioned in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday say things are going well in the country today. That's an all-time low. Eighty-three percent say things are going badly, which is an all-time high.

"The challenge Obama faces has never been greater. No president has ever come to office during a time when the public's mood has been this low. In the 34 years that this question has been asked, the number who say things are going well has never fallen below 20 percent," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director.

The 83 percent saying things are going badly is "more than in 1992, when the first President Bush was ousted because of the economy, stupid. That's more than in 1980, when President Carter got fired after the malaise crisis. That's more than in 1975, after Watergate and the Nixon pardon," said Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst.
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The all-time low on the public's mood ***may*** have something to do with the poll's finding that President Bush is the most unpopular president since approval ratings were first sought more than six decades ago. Seventy-six percent of those questioned in the poll disapprove of how he is handling his job.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/10/bush.transition.poll/index.html

Emphasis added, with obvious justification.