Country Going in the Right Direction/Wrong Direction....

In Iraq [Jan. 2006]...

Overall, 64% of Iraqis say that Iraq is heading in the right direction, while just 36% say it is heading in the wrong direction. This represents a sharp upward movement from when the International Republican Institute asked this question in November 2005 and just 49% said that Iraq was headed in the right direction and 36% said the wrong direction. The only other time that IRI has found such a high number expressing such optimism was in April 2005 -also just after an election- when 67% said the country was headed in the right direction and 20% the wrong direction.

In the USA, RealClear Politics publishes averages and they say that R/W is 31%/61%.

Now these numbers seem a little confusing to me. If things are going so badly in Iraq as I have been reading so much about in the popular press, then why are the poll numbers there so good? And are things that bad in the US/ Wages are rising, unemployment is falling and the Dow Jones is near an all-time high [seems like a preferable direction to me] are things so bad in the US?

I suppose the reason why people are feeling so gloomy is that the Republicans, that control both houses of congress and the Whitehouse, are at risk of possibly losing one the chambers in Congress or maybe both in the mid-term elections November 2006. If the Democrats win, this would mean that Democrats would be proposing all kinds of silly new taxes and other useless and wasteful programs and there will be hell to pay. Can one imagine the unhinged socialist Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House? I shudder just thinking of such a crime. But Tradesports has GOP control of the Senate at 80% probability and the House at a little over 50%.