By LEE BALLARD

The Daily Planet’s front-page headline read:  “County headed on wrong path, GOP’s poll says.”

“Dadgummit,” I said (or something similar), “I’m going to write a column on that.”

OK, I admit I read it as “country” instead of “county” – but that’s a detail. I stand by my reaction.

Was the headline an attempt at ironic humor?  Republicans taking a poll to see if voters are happy?  The idea is outrageous – no, beyond outrageous.  It’s almost obscene.

It’s like the black snake that lives under our house taking a poll of the mice there: Do they feel secure and safe? Of course they don’t!  And the black snake is the reason why they don’t!

Democrats say the GOP poll in the headline was “push poll” – a telemarketing device disguised as a poll with no effort to collect data.  That may or may not be true.  It doesn’t matter really. 

Take a poll of all the voters in America and a majority will say the country is on the wrong track.  Take a poll of voters in North Carolina, or a poll of voters in any county, and a majority will say the same thing. 

Why?  Because we ARE on the wrong track. Big news.  Alert the media. 

At the Republican bottom line, it’s not important how happy we voters are.  We’re incidental.  But take a poll of corporate CEOs, and they’ll say, “Oh yeah, everything’s clicking along just great.  We’re fat and smiling.”

Republicans have put Washington in a full-court press.  Nothing makes it to half-court.  National Republicans WANT people to feel discontent.  For six years they’ve tried to make President Obama a failure.  After all, they’re the alternative!  Obama should have done what he didn’t, and he shouldn’t have done what he did. The House of Representatives does nothing – as a strategy.  The Senate filibusters anything Obama wants.    

Obamacare was first proposed by Republicans, but when Democrats proposed it in 2010, it became the Republicans’ rallying cry.  I remember Senator Jim DeMent writing his constituents that Republicans would kill Obamacare and that would be the end of Obama’s presidency.  It’s man-made, intentional gridlock.

Through the decades of Democratic control in Washington, Congress didn’t work that way.  Democrats respected and worked with minority Republicans.

Take a right-track, wrong-track poll of North Carolina voters, and you’ll get the same result:  We’re on the wrong track.  Why? 

When my wife and I hosted a little party in our neighborhood for the purpose of discussing current issues, one neighbor asked that same “Why?” question: 

“I’m not political,” he said. “But I’d like to know what’s happened to North Carolina.”  He sees what is going on around him – teachers being laid off, budget cuts that result in service cuts, voting rules changed – and he wonders why.  He would answer “wrong track” to a poll.

It’s a natural reaction.  Would we feel safe crossing a street if traffic rules were repealed?  Public schools, private schools, charter schools?  Tax cuts for millionaires but we’re paying more tax.  The General Assembly meets to work out a budget, but they have no idea how much revenue they’ll have.  Duffer golfers running the PGA.

Take a poll of Buncombe County voters and, of course, the county is on the wrong path. 

Here’s what’s going on. Political issues aren’t a big part of most people’s daily lives. They see the dysfunction my neighbor sees, and they conclude: “We’re on the wrong track. I don’t know why, but I’m sure of it.”

Right track or wrong track?  Don’t bother to ask – especially you cynics who took us on the wrong track.

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Lee Ballard lives in Mars Hill.