Mitt Romney Venn Diagram Confuses Health Care Issue

Usually, Venn diagrams are an effective tool to show where two or three things do and do not overlap. Mitt Romney's campaign chose to use a Venn diagram in a rather confusing way.

The diagram, which the campaign included in an email fundraising appeal sent out late Monday night, depicts President Barack Obama's "middle-class promise gap" on health care -- how he has failed to lower premiums for middle-class families, as he once said he would.

In the left circle is Obama's campaign promise to lower health care premiums by $2,500 for the typical family. In the right circle is the current state of those premiums: They've increased by $2,393 since Obama took office.

And the overlap -- usually reserved for what the two circles have in common -- is labeled the "gap": The Romney campaign says premiums cost $4,893 more than Obama promised they would (that's $2,393 plus $2,500).

It makes a political point, but not much visual sense.