Reply #2: This is going to come back and

[waiting for hope]

bite them all in the ass. Apparently they haven't been paying attention:

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN ANALYST (voice-over): Here are issues voters now rate as the most important in their vote for president. The economy now tops the list. Just ahead of the war in Iraq.

MARK ZANDI, MOODY'S ECONOMY.COM: At the heart of our current economic problems is the evaporating housing market, the plunge in sales, construction and most importantly, house prices.

SCHNEIDER: When the economy is bad, the economy is the issue. That was certainly the case in 1980 when Ronald Reagan got elected. And in 1992 when Bill Clinton won on the economy, stupid. At the time of those two elections, only about a third of Americans said things were going well in the country. Compare that with the last three presidential elections. In 1996, 2000 and 2004, solid majorities said things were going well. And this year? It looked good in January when 57 percent of Americans thought things were going well. But that number has been dropping all year. It's now only 42 percent.

ZANDI: The job growth has slowed quite sharply over the course of the past six, 12 months. And at this current rate of job growth unemployment will continue to rise. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0711/07/ldt.01.html

This country is so screwed.