Going Political
I didn’t pay that much attention to either of the conventions, because they’re about getting the party faithful excited and motivated for the last stretch, and neither the Democratic nor Republican parties do it for me. (Although, for the first time in a long time, I think both parties nominated the candidate I’d hoped would win.) I will admit that as far back as January I had high hopes for a McCain-Obama match up, hoping that they might actually break the cycle of negative campaigning. Both sides have been disappointing me. They seem to be in an odd dance, unsure whether they should go on the offensive or be less aggressive, so they keep taking pot shots at each other. And, of course, a presidential election campaign is not just two principles, but a whole army of people both inside the campaign itself and much larger armies sallying forth. It’s a sad fact that neither Obama nor McCain can do much to control the overall discourse.
I did get information about the conventions from NPR and the BBC, so I’m not entirely in the dark. (I am, after all, a concerned citizen who does vote.) And of late, I’ve been hearing a lot about how nasty the Republican speeches where, how many of them were direct attacks on Obama. In fact, I heard a clip on All Things Considered this afternoon with Obama saying just that.
Keeping that in mind, I found this Wordle representation of the major convention speeches interesting. Not having heard nor read more than short clips of any of the speeches, I won’t comment on whether or not one party was nastier than the other. I will note, however, that as one who did not hear the speeches, I do find the prominence of John McCain’s name in many of the Democratic word clouds and the lack of prominence of Barack Obama’s name in the Republican word clouds interesting. (Compare, for instance, Biden’s and Obama’s clouds with Palin’s and McCain’s.) What this tells me is that if McCain and Palin attacked Obama as harshly and regularly as I’ve heard some people claim, they didn’t do it by name, whereas Obama and Biden invoked McCain’s name frequently.
Comments
No Responses to “Going Political”
Leave a Reply
Twitter Feed- "Never try to out stubborn a cat." -- *The Notebooks of Lazarus Long*
- My Twitter BFFs: @girlofnewmedia @sisypheantask @billiehara @digital_sextant @minute @tengrrl. Find yours @ http://twitterbffs.com
- Four separate sets of plans canceled on me this weekend. With few friends in this state, that's an epic failure.
Hi John,
Your close on the observation of who mentioned their opponents name reminded me of this Washington Monthly post
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_09/014585.php
The post compares the frequency with which McCain and Obama each referred to himself in their respective convention acceptance speeches.
Interesting. I should try reading the transcripts of these speeches some times.
Thanks, Nick!