Everybody in Democratic Washington is very excited because the “right track- wrong track” numbers are heading Bill Clinton’s way. For years, people have been telling pollsters they think the country is on the “wrong track,” and it has always been deemed one of the most important numbers in polling because it’s simple, people understand it, and it gets to underlying feelings about the state of the country. Now the “right track” number is up, way up, near 60 percent in one poll. Clinton is golden, right?
Wait a minute. This is a very weird situation. Because Bill Clinton spent four days on his train trip talking about how “we’re on the right track to the 21st century.” It makes sense, then, that when Americans are asked whether we’re on the “right track,” more of them will say yes — they became used to hearing the term used in a positive manner by their president.
That suggests Bill Clinton has done something so bizarrely cynical it seems to have no purpose. He basically fooled around with the “right track-wrong track” question so that he could hear the answer he wanted to hear. But that really doesn’t mean people are suddenly in a better mood about America or the future. The question has always been designed so that politicians could find out how people really feel, not how their spin is going over. All Clinton’s gamesmanship means is that an entirely new way of asking the question is going to have to be devised.
What, exactly, was the point of this exercise? Just to get reporters and pundits to ooh and aah over the change in the “right track” number. It’s an amazing and ultimately pointless trick, but like a lot of Morris tricks (sorry) It seems to have worked.
