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Is America Better Off Now Than It Was Four Years Ago?
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19551 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1991 |
2,804 Words |
| Author
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Everett Carll Ladd
Everett Carll Ladd is director of the Roper Center in
Storrs, Connecticut. |
Near the end of his debate with Jimmy Carter at the close of the 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan urged his fellow citizens to ask themselves, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"
Better off in what ways? "Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe, that we're as strong as we were four years ago?" If you're inclined to answer yes, Reagan concluded, then you should vote for the incumbent president; if no, he was saying, you should give me your vote and I will be an agent of change.
Now, at the start of the 1992 presidential campaign, we can pose the same basic question. Is the United States better off than it was four years ago? And just as the answer Americans gave to Reagan's query in 1980 went far toward determining that election's results, so can we expect that the answers given this time will shape the 1992 election.
To get a sense of what the answers are likely to be, we need to go back to the three main planks on which the Republicans sought a mandate 11 years ago, which have sustained them in the presidency since. Reagan argued in the 1980 campaign that the United States needed three distinct elements of national restoration--political, international, and economic. Let's look at these elements and see how each has fared in the Bush years.
Restoring the presidency
The sense of political failure was palpable in the 1970s. The presidency is the center of our national governmental system; its practical role is great, but its symbolic position is enormous. By the end of the seventies--as a result of the Vietnam War experience, Watergate, and the many failures of the Carter presidency--the public had lost confidence that the office could deliver the needed leadership. This perception turned around dramatically in the Reagan years. Now it is clear that the restoration of confidence in the presidential leadership has continued through George Bush's tenure in office.
Much has been made of the extraordinary level of public backing that Bush achieved at the conclusion of the Gulf War last winter. Something between 85 and 90 percent of adult Americans then said they approved of the way the
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