and, of course, he lost. so did ronald reagan. ronald reagan was trailing oil, and i'll -- ronald reagan was trailing walter mondale by 11 points at this point. the economy went down in bush 41's case. you are a prisoner, a captive of economic events. >> one of the interesting things is that some of this is going on in europe, and some economists are beginning to wonder -- everybody agrees we have to cut the deficit. but people are beginning to wonder whether you put in these kinds of a draconian measures at the time of a recession, that it could exacerbate problems, and that we should perhaps think about doing this in a slightly different way. >> we are not thinking about doing it at all, that is the problem. the central fact of life is debt. we had been living beyond our means, europe has been living beyond its means, social