In the closing moments of the final presidential debate just days before the 1980 election, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan asked a question of the American people so pointed and so prescient that it has become the standard in every election since.
“Next Tuesday all of you will go to the polls and will stand there in the polling place and make a decision,” he said, looking straight into the camera and straight into the eyes of millions of voters. “I think as you make that decision it might be well if you would ask yourself: Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the store 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 are as strong as we were four years ago?
If you answer all of those questions ‘yes,’ why then I think your choice is very obvious as to who you will vote for. If you don’t agree, if you don’t think this course that we’ve been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then I would suggest another choice that you have.
The following Tuesday, Reagan won the presidency in a landslide.
As President Joe Biden
