"Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?"

So asked then-candidate Ronald Reagan during the 1980 Presidential Debate with Jimmy Carter. Today's Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, is trying to use the same tactic. I think it's the right idea, but the wrong time-frame.
Let's ask a different question, are you and America better off today than you were on Jan 3, 2007?

Unemployment was holding steady at 4.6%, following 52 consecutive months of job growth.
The Dow Jones Industrial closed 2006 12,621.77...up 19%
The S&P 500 was up 15.70% for the year
The 2006 GDP was +4.92%
The deficit was about $400 billion
The debt limit (ceiling) was $9T
Our S&P credit rating was AAA

Jan 3, 2007 was the day Democrats took control of both houses of congress. That's the day America was introduced to the "leadership" of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Democrat control of all the committees. Things have been horrific since then, and that's not just a inconvenient coincidence, it's a very convenient (for Romney anyway) truth.

President Obama enjoys wide personal popularity among the electorate, and going directly after him isn't going to win many votes for Mr. Romney. Besides, the fact is the economy was in terrible shape...and heading south quickly...when BHO took over. A more effective approach is to associate President Obama's policies (and by extension, him) with the widely unpopular Reid-Pelosi tandem of failure. By using Jan 3, 2007 as the reference date for "are you better off?" Romney can point to a time when our economy was in great shape and ask Americans to compare their lot today with how it was before Reid-Pelosi-Obama gained control. Remind people, subtly, that Senator Obama was part of the cabal of ineptness that wrought economic ruin to America, and as President these same policies have simply failed to fix the problems they created. Whenever the defense of "he inherited" pops up, the Republican response should be "he inherited it from Pelosi, Reid and himself. Until the Democrats took control of Congress, everything was fine. It's been a disaster since then."

Much like candidate Obama successfully associated John McCain with the 'failures' of GWB, Mitt Romney needs to associate President Obama's failed economic policies with his Reid-Pelosi association...which ushered in economic calamity in the first place.

And for the record...no I'm not better off today than I was 4 years ago.