{"id":8072,"date":"2016-03-13T08:01:54","date_gmt":"2016-03-13T15:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/presidential-candidates-offer-dark-visions-to-anxious-voters\/"},"modified":"2016-03-13T08:01:54","modified_gmt":"2016-03-13T15:01:54","slug":"presidential-candidates-offer-dark-visions-to-anxious-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/presidential-candidates-offer-dark-visions-to-anxious-voters\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidential candidates offer dark visions to anxious voters"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI \u2014<\/strong> There was little sunshine in Florida this week after the presidential candidates arrived.<\/p>\n

In back-to-back debates just miles apart, Democrats and Republicans painted a dark vision of America, a place where jobs are vanishing, leaders are corrupt and threats loom from across the globe.<\/p>\n

Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders described a nation in \u201creal crisis,\u201d with a \u201crigged economy.\u201d Americans are \u201ca bunch of suckers\u201d who\u2019ve \u201clost everything,\u201d Republican front-runner Donald Trump said the following night.<\/p>\n

Washington is \u201ckilling jobs,\u201d as Iranian leaders conspire to \u201cmurder us,\u201d warned Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.<\/p>\n

Gloomy assessments of the country\u2019s future have emerged as a constant refrain of the 2016 presidential contest, as candidates woo a frustrated and anxious electorate.<\/p>\n

That insecurity, which pollsters say pervades discussions about economic, domestic and foreign policy issues, is setting the stage for an emotionally-charged general election \u2014 no matter who wins the primary contests. Voters, say strategists in both parties, fear the country is on a sharp downward slide and there\u2019s little government can do to save it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat eternal optimism that Americans have is at risk right now,\u201d said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, a top strategist for Mitt Romney\u2019s 2012 campaign. \u201cThere\u2019s a sense that something has gone awry and we\u2019re no long in control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though unemployment is at the lowest rate since the 2008 recession, surveys show that a majority of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, as they have for much of the past dozen years. In polls, respondents say they don\u2019t expect life for their children\u2019s generation to be better than their own.<\/p>\n

The last time most Americans said they were \u201csatisfied\u201d with the direction of the country was in January 2004, according to Gallup tracking polls.<\/p>\n

Katherine Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, has been conducting extended conversations about voter attitudes with people in her politically competitive state since 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings have definitely gotten worse in Wisconsin in terms of the overall mood,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s become a different place. People are more on edge, more distrusting of each other and their government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most successful candidates have tailored their messages for the times, leaving behind the kinds of optimistic slogans that defined the campaigns of most recent presidents.<\/p>\n

Cruz frequently warns that the nation is standing at the edge of an abyss, and it must \u201cawaken the body of Christ\u201d to pull back. At Thursday\u2019s debate, Trump declared that \u201cour jobs are going to hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, known for offering a more toned-down evaluation of the country, offered a dim outlook. \u201cEvery institution in America has been failing us for the last 20 or 30 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, who criticizes Trump\u2019s slogan of \u201cmaking America great again,\u201d acknowledges some of the grimmer realities \u2014 even while trying to set herself apart as a leader who could unify the country. While she used to argue that the country is \u201calready great,\u201d now she vows to make it \u201cwhole\u201d\u2014 an implicit acknowledgment that things have perhaps gone awry.<\/p>\n

Democrats \u2014 and even some Republicans \u2014 believe voters will demand positive messages of renewal once the campaign enters the general election.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point you\u2019ll have to say \u2018here\u2019s how I\u2019ll take the nation forward, not just make this a wrestling mud match\u2019,\u201d said Republican pollster Ed Goeas, who\u2019s working on efforts to defeat Trump.<\/p>\n

But much of the worry stems from economic stress, a situation unlikely to change dramatically for most people before the fall elections. While a booming stock market and low interest rates helped the wealthiest sliver of the country, many Americans have yet to recover the ground lost in the recession.<\/p>\n

The typical U.S. household earned $57,153 at the end of last year, according to Sentier Research. That total \u2014 after adjusting for inflation \u2014 is slightly below incomes in January 2000, meaning that much of the country has endured rising education and health care expenses without much in the way of pay raises.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe roots of this mood are more economic but it\u2019s compounded by looking at gridlock in Washington,\u201d said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, a strategist for a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton\u2019s candidacy. \u201cFor people who feel that they are still struggling eight years after the crash, their patience has run out.\u201d<\/p>\n

That frustration has been channeled into a long list of grievances. Democrats decry greedy Wall Street traders and lead-poisoned water, lax gun laws and a failed criminal justice system. Republicans blame undocumented immigrants, political correctness and foreign terrorists for what they often depict as a country in decline.<\/p>\n

At Democratic debates in Miami and Flint this week, Clinton fended off questions from immigrant families separated for years by deportation and parents worried about lead-poisoned water and mass shootings.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour government at all levels have let you and your children and the people of Flint down,\u201d Clinton told a woman, who described being unsure if she will ever use the water in her hometown again.<\/p>\n

Republicans, meanwhile, argued over lost jobs, threats from abroad and even the divisiveness of their own campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have anger that\u2019s unbelievable,\u201d Trump said of his supporters. \u201cThere is some anger. There\u2019s also great love for the country. It\u2019s a beautiful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Scott Bauer contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Lisa Lerer on Twitter at: http:\/\/twitter.com\/llerer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MIAMI \u2014 There was little sunshine in Florida this week after the presidential candidates arrived. In back-to-back debates just miles apart, Democrats and Republicans painted a dark vision of America, a place where jobs are vanishing, leaders are corrupt and threats loom from across the globe. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders described a nation in \u201creal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8072"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}