City On A Hill - Sunny Side Up For The Young And Restless - The Associated Press

By ANN SANNER, Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) He's 30, between jobs, with $50,000 in student debt and no clear sense what the future holds. But Erik Santamaria, Ohio-born son of Salvadorans, has a pretty awesome attitude about his country, his life and the world of possibilities.

"Maybe things won't work out the way I want," he says. "But, boy, I sure can't complain about how things have worked out so far."

This is the sweet spot of American optimism, a trait that looms large in the nation's history and imagination. To find it these days, talk to an immigrant, the child of one or, failing that, a young person of any background. That's where the torch seems most likely to burn brightly.

With anyone else, it's hit or miss.

For many, these times are a slog.

That "shining city on a hill " from political mythology looks more like a huffing climb up a field filled with ticks. Public opinion researchers find handwringing at almost every turn, over a glum and nervous decade defined by terrorism, then war, then recession, then paltry economic recovery.

Still, you aren't seeing pessimism in the season of the political conventions.

The Democrats, convening Tuesday in Charlotte, N.C., want to corner the franchise on happier tomorrows, just as the Republicans wanted at their convention this past week. The notion that America's best days are ahead comes packaged and polished from the stage, cheered by delegates in goofy hats.

But such platitudes probably won't go far with Marie Holly, 54.

On her lunch break in a mall just north of Columbus, Holly recounts a struggle to get by as a temporary floor designer at a department store, making one-third of the salary she once earned at a graphics-design firm that cut hours and wages before she quit in January to freelance. She firmly believes in the American Dream, but in the sense of dreaming it, not grasping it.

"I'm not seeing anything to strive for, I guess," she said. "I'm settling."

Polls sing the blues:

Nearly two-thirds lack confidence that life for today's children will be better than it has been for today's adults, according to an NBC-Wall Street Journal survey in May.

Half of registered voters do not see the U.S. as the shining city on a hill , meaning the example for other countries, though 45 percent do, according to a Fox News poll in June.

In April 2011, a USA Today-Gallup poll found that optimism that the next generation's lives will be better than parents' dropped to its lowest level since the question was asked in 1983. Only 42 percent thought so. Before then, majorities always believed their children would have a better life.