© Leigh Vogel/Getty ImagesContrary to President Obama's 2008 message, anger and anxiety now runs deep with voters across the country less this election season.
Eight years ago, Barbara Conley was one of the millions of Americans swept up in Barack Obama's promises of hope and change when he accepted the Democratic nomination at a packed football stadium a few miles from her home in the Denver suburbs.
But those optimistic days are almost unrecognizable to Conley now.
With Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton preparing for their own nominating conventions, the 68-year-old independent is filled with so much frustration at the candidates and the political system that propelled them to victory that she can't even imagine voting in November.
"I'm so mad about both of the candidates," said Conley, who finds Clinton too dishonest and Trump too unproven to be president. She paused while loading groceries into her car and declared, "It's depressing."
Less than four months before Election Day, that same sense of anger and anxiety runs deep with voters across the country. Trump and Clinton will each try to paint a rosy picture of life under their leadership during their back-to-back conventions, but it seems unlikely either can quickly shake Americans out of their bad mood.
A stunning 79 percent of Americans now believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, a 15-point spike in the past year, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. Voters are strikingly unhappy with the candidates who will be on the ballot this fall, with only 22 percent saying they would be proud to see Trump win and 27 percent to see Clinton.
Comment: That presentation of a choice between two bad options one of the PTB's favorite manipulations. There is the third choice: don't vote.