I guess it feels different to me. It makes me think think more about what was actually going on. And the '4 years' question is a slogan. I think any time you can avoid one or come up with your own, the better.

ALSO, perhaps, I did not think about that before I posted

Ask: "Would you rather live in the world the way it was in 2008 and early 2009? (Brings up memory of the fear and chaos going on day after day, not knowing what was going to happen next.)

Or: "Would you rather live in the present world--2012?)

If there is any convenient amnesia, it is totally OK to remind the person of exactly what was going on at that time. 401Ks in free fall. (I know because I know how hysterical my husband was at that time.) Wall Street in absolute panic mode. Job losses starting to really mount up to numbers no one could deny were catastrophic.

If anyone honestly wants to return to that time, they need their head examined. Romney promises emphatically that he will go back to the same policies that put us in the hole we're struggling to climb out of in 2012. It was good for some rich guys, but the rest of us took it on the chin over and over. He has also promised to take anything that serves as a safety net and rip it to shreds. Programs like Medicare and Medicaid will be flung on the trash heap. Social Security will meet the same fate. It's gonna be a dog eat dog world if Romney/Ryan have their way. I cannot believe anyone with two brain cells left to rub together would vote for these two snooks. Sadly they will, but hopefully, not enough to give them the titles.

Even though I agree in the larger sense we are definitely better off now than 2008 when things were in free fall, things were just recent then.

It was still just the numbers and the banks going down at the time. It has hit some businesses but in a personal one to one level, it has not affected as many yet in regards to their Individual Condition.

Job loss was still happening during the time, and even though it was a lot, more people then could say "I have a job, so we're still ok". Note, that even if some people's retirement, investment and so forth has gone down, they were still just paper losses.

That is why to me, Obama's message of "Citizenship" and "We are all in this together" resonates, because people need to look at things beyond themselves. Otherwise, people would likely look at that and think how they were in 2008 when they may still have had a job, they were still in college before the gravity of the situation finally became personal, and go off saying, why hasn't he fixed things yet?

I'd rather ask the question:
"Would you rather go back to the time(around 2008) when we were having net job losses or now that we actually have a consistent month to month net job increase?"

Because, even if the jobs report is lower than expected, it is still an increase rather than a decrease.