Here are some of the latest results from the Gallup organization, which has polled American attitudes on just about everything for the last 70 years:

* Early June has 86 percent saying U.S. economy is getting worse

* Net new hiring activity suggests U.S. lost jobs in May

* Record-high 55 percent of Ame-ricans "financially worse off"

* U.S. investor optimism at lowest point in five years

* Gas prices affecting vacation plans in U.S.

* Americans expect U.S. economy to worsen.

The economic view from a national perspective is clearly grim, and there's little reason to believe Maine residents as a distinct group see anything much different. Add to that the escalating costs that have put adequate health care out of reach of many Mainers; the huge increase in heating oil prices; the security threats from terrorism; the ever-rising cost, both human and economic, of a war-with-no-end in Iraq; the real estate slump and the subprime mortgage crunch, and you've got a pretty awful set of challenges facing Maine and the nation.

Fear -- real fear of losing the life we've led for a long time -- abounds. We're in the newspaper business and, these days, even we are afraid to read the headlines.

With all that in mind, let us now turn to Tuesday's primary results. Political veterans Chellie Pingree and Charlie Summers have, respectively, captured the Democratic and Repub-lican nominations for the 1st District congressional race. Republican Sen. Susan Collins' Democratic challenger will be the current occupant of the 1st District seat, Tom Allen.

As those candidates campaign, we hope they pay serious attention to the serious issues facing all of us and resist the temptation -- proffered by campaign operatives, PR consultants, party pollsters and all sorts of devils-in-disguise -- to march off into the territory of the useless and irrelevant.

By that we mean the familiar region of issues that excites a narrow party base and gets people who spend a lot of time on the Internet all hot and bothered, such as impeaching President Bush or why Candidate X took contributions from Felon Y or what church so-and-so's spouse went to three times 40 years ago.

Such issues resonate for talk radio hosts, perhaps, but have little meaning and relevance for the rest of us trying to figure out how to pay next winter's heating bills and the doctor's tab, feed our kids, hang on to our job and maybe get that college degree we've been working on part time for the last four years so we can make a better living.

And as for the pledges against negative campaigning soon to be publicly undertaken by candidates looking virtuous -- spare us.

Politics is a rough business and shouldn't be undertaken by those prone to vapors and who shock easily.

Huge issues are at stake in this election and we expect both the race for Congress and the Senate to be hard fought and expensive. We're fine with negative campaigning as long as it's substantive; that means it's OK to criticize opponents for their economic proposals, their stands on universal health care or their positions on how to proceed in Iraq. It's rarely OK, however, to criticize them for who their friends or neighbors are.

The Iraq war is far from over. Iran and Pakistan are simmering with anti-American resentment. Afghanistan is edging back toward being an uncontrollable mess. The economy is in bad shape, people are going hungry all over the country, money for school improvement is in short supply and a winter's worth of heating oil will be out of reach for many Mainers.

Those are the issues worth talking about in Campaign '08. No one will have all the answers; few will have even half of the answers we need.

But these are the issues we must grapple with and anything less will be an insult to the very real needs of Maine voters.