Kerry's Misery Index

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0412.html

Does anyone here have the ear of anyone in the Kerry camp? Kerry has the graph UPSIDE DOWN. According to his graph, Democratic Presidents cause middle class misery and Republican Presidents are good for the middle class. Look at the thing and tell me if I'm wrong. Misery goes way down under BushI and way up under Clinton. Then it goes back down under BushII. Also, the numbers are positive for Dems (more misery) and negative for Repugs (less misery). They either need to rename the index to something positive or flip the graph along the Y axis.

I've posted on the blog and on the forum, and it's still FUBAR. Can anyone do something?

:mad:

"(Note, unlike the original Misery Index, a higher index indicates that people are better off.)"

It says: "(Note, unlike the original Misery Index, a higher index indicates that people are better off.)"

:grr:

You shouldn't have to read the fine print. Especially because it would be so easy to correct.

unlike original misery index, up is better.

If they merely called it that, the graph would be right. Still if you read the methodology the technique is appropriate. Values less than 100 indicate more misery with respect to 1976 and thus the "Misery Index" goes down during Republican Admins and up during Democratic ones.

The Y-axis is arbitrary and is framed so that Dems get big numbers and Reps get low ones. If it were flipped, Reps would get big numbers which I'm sure the Kerry campaign wants to avoid. I agree tho' that Dems should not have big numbers on anything called a "Misery Index" so call it a "Prosperity Index" if that name ain't already taken. Somebody tell the Kerry campaign quick!

Geez, you'd think if they could figure out the stats to calculate the index they could at least frame it consistently!

Oh, well...if people get it, it's an incredibly powerful tool.

the formatting is dumb. Why take such a simple powerful message and fuck it up? Come on John, get your crew together!

BTW the idea below to call it a Prosperity Index is a MUCH BETTER way to present it!!