Half of Americans totally clueless
A huge core of the people in the US (I'm referring to Republicans of course) simply have no clue about the scale of the disaster they will bring about by electing John McCain. With all the failures of the previous 8 years, they remain in total denial about the simple fact that John McCain has been a long-time advocate of failed conservative policies, in both economics AND foreign affairs. For example, the following article from April 2008 is about one of McCain's main economic advisors, Phil Gramm (full article here):

"More to the point may be Gramm's aggressive efforts when he was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee to deregulate the banking and financial services industry. That culminated in passage in 1999 of a sweeping financial services law that tore down the Depression-era Glass-Steagall wall separating regulated commercial banks from largely unregulated investment banks. And little regulation was put in to replace it.

"We are here today to repeal Glass-Steagall, because we have learned that government is not the answer," Gramm declared at the time. "We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers. We have learned that we promote economic growth and we promote stability by having competition and freedom."

To many liberal economists, Gramm's efforts set the stage for the current crisis. Lending by noncommercial banks has soared, to about 70 percent of total lending. Investment banks, including Bear Stearns, grew too large to be allowed to fail. And, said James K. Galbraith, a University of Texas economist, investment banks helped create the exotic financial instruments that turned subprime mortgages into tradable securities.

"Phil Gramm's career was as the most aggressive advocate of every predatory and rapacious element that the financial sector has," Galbraith said. "He's a sorcerer's apprentice of instability and disaster in the financial system."

(emphasis mine). However this election turns out, I have become saddened by the realization that such a large part of our nation is flatly incapable of responding wisely to an increasingly complex and challenging world.