by Herb Strentz

GOP vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan visited Iowa and, as an inquiring mind, wanted to know “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

The “Are you better off…” approach worked for Ronald Reagan in his 1980 campaign against President Jimmy Carter.

A moment’s reflection, however, should raise some problems with the question, but “a moment’s reflection” is a scarce commodity in politics and election news coverage.

The question is tricky and troubling from a number of perspectives, not even considering its ambiguity and lack of context.

For example, the question can be self-serving or “me-first” in nature; the question focuses on the relative short term; the question suggests that sacrifice for the common good is an outmoded, if not laughable, concept.

But the question survives; long-term concerns and calls for sacrifice don’t float well with the press and much of the public these days.

Suppose we try a broader perspective: “Are WE better off today?”

Well, then at least we’re in step with Mitt Romney’s vow that the U.S. won’t be like Europe. In measures of infant mortality, literacy and life expectancy, we lag behind western European nations. From a global standpoint, in infant mortality, for 2012 we are at an estimated 5.98 deaths of infants under 1 year old for every 1,000 births. That’s an improvement over the 6.61 in 2008, but it still places us 174th out of 222 nations, according to the CIA’s World Factbook.

(We really should find ways to be “better” off when it comes to issues like infant mortality and life expectancy. But avoiding those topics has much in common with the theology of the religious right these days. For all its piety, the GOP makes sure that Matthew 25 — the command to heal the sick, feed the hungry, house the homeless — doesn’t see the light of day in party platforms. Plank 18.3 of the Iowa GOP platform declares, “We believe that health care is a privilege, not a right.”)

“Are we better off today?” Well, according to an article in the September/October issue of foreign affairs, we are undertaxed: “Compared with other developed countries, the United States has very low taxes, little income redistribution, and an extraordinarily complex tax code… (T)he government could raise taxes without crippling growth or productivity. Tax reform is ultimately a political choice, not an economic one — a statement about what sort of society Americans want.”

As troubling as the “Are-you-better-off” question is, you can see why Ryan asks it. The question is much better for him than: “So, what do you think of my friend Todd Akin’s view that women automatically avoid pregnancies when forcible rapes are legitimate?”

Ryan, Romney and the Republican Party fled from Rep. Akin’s (R-Mo.) comments about rape and abortion. They fled even though, or perhaps because, Akin’s views — at their anti-abortion core — are consistent with GOP state party platforms.

(And even though Akin and Ryan were co-sponsors of an effort to introduce the notion of “forcible rape” as a way to restrict abortion funding.)

A New Yorker cartoon summarized the situation by satirizing a candidate’s apology: “I regret that my poor choice of words caused some people to understand what I was saying.”

Ryan, Romney and the rest wanted no such understanding. Much of the press complied, characterizing Akin as being out of step with his party instead of being its drum major.

USA TODAY carried a headline: “Social issues intrude on GOP.”

Come on! Social issues don’t intrude on today’s GOP. Social issues ARE today’s GOP.

But much of the press coverage does not acknowledge that, at the grass roots, the GOP has been taken over by the religious right; likewise, most ignore state Republican party platforms, the best evidence of the takeover.

If we are better off in some respects, the likes of Akin, Ryan and the religious right threaten to put an end to that, particularly when it comes to civil liberties and the ideal that we respect differences and still share responsibilities for “what sort of society Americans want” today — and tomorrow. CV

Herb Strentz is a retired administrator and professor in the Drake School of Journalism and Mass Communication and writes occasional columns for Cityview.