Comparing veep candidates’ speeches
Vice president candidate Joe Biden’s speech last week at the Democratic National Convention in Denver:
Vice president candidate Sarah Palin’s speech tonight at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis:Â
Each word cloud highlights the 150 most common words, weighted according to which were said most often. Tag clouds by Wordle.
2008
3
Sep
- Posted by Erica Smith at 09:08 pm / Permalink for this post
- Filed under: , politics
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Its interesting to see how one of the speaches seems to be more for the people and country and the other is just about two people
Why is mom listed twice on Obama’s. Shouldn’t this be listed just once? What is this supposed to tell me. This is dumb.
Tim, you are correct. It is clear that one will make decisions out of conscience, while the other will make decisions out of self vanity.
One speech speaks to things the American people are most worried about…the other was a partisan attack speech about reform and change from the party that has been in power for the majority of the last 8 years.
It seems to me that Biden’s speech is about two people concerning Obama these days: himself and his opponent McCain. While Palin’s speech is about family, taxes. energy, and America… all values that American’s care and vote about in elections.
This is nice.
Great job from one graphic designer (with a love of info design) to another.
It is interesting to see where the focus is with both parties.
Can you do one of both McCain and Obama?
I have a hunch what those might look like…
I do have to say that Palin nailed it last night. This info layout design supports this thought as well.
This is a nice idea.
Can I get the Palin one put on a t-shirt?
how is the size and shading determined? For instance in Palin’s cloud the word America is bigger than any other word but is shaded lighter than other smaller words , while in Barack’s cloud the largest words are the darkest…is this some arbitrary interpretation of the designer or is it based on emperical data? Colors and shades should be consistent with size in order to presetn a better comparison of th espeeches. Nice work though.
Bob said, “Palin’s speech is about family, taxes. energy, and America… all values that American’s care and vote about in elections.”
Bob, You sure are gullible arent you? Let history speak for themselves here:
Obama has CFR ties (Council of Foreign Relations) and you can bet he will buy Americas good name back by raising our taxes. Obama was also seen at the Bilderburg meetings, a world Elite organization. Im sure he doesnt have AMERICA’S best interests in mind.
McCain’s integrity is WORTHLESS. He was a key member of the Keating Five Savings & Loan scandal of the 1980s. While Sarah might be able to talk the talk, its embarrassing how she supports John McCain, a New World Order shill.
I hope you dont fall for this rhetoric…. from either party.
@Tippy: I only see “mom” listed once in Biden’s speech — at the very top above the O in John. Am I missing the other one? It’s possible “moms” is also in there, just like “America”, “American” and “Americans” shows up in both word clouds. Word clouds simply pick up the most repeated words.
@Heather: Here’s Obama’s speech. I plan to create and post a word cloud from McCain’s speech after he speaks tonight.
@Kelly: You’re welcome to download the word cloud, or create your own at Wordle. Just enter the text of the speech — here’s Palin’s — and then you can change the fonts, colors and layout.
@Marc: The size of the word is determined by how often it is repeated, and each word cloud includes 150 words. So in Biden’s speech, “Barack”, “Obama” and “John” look to be the most popular. In Palin’s speech there’s not quite as much variance, but it looks like “McCain”, “America”, “country”, “just”, “people” and “man” were the key words. Color is random — in fact, you can create a word cloud that’s all one color.
The names of the candidates appear in Biden’s speech more than Palin’s because Biden’s speech sought more to highlight distinctions between Obama and McCain (thus causing him to use their names more frequently relative to the other words than Palin did), whereas Palin’s sought to appeal to the Republican base and its values. The goal of each speech was different, so I’m not sure you can fairly compare them with these clouds. Nonetheless, kinda cool.
They’re both puppets reading speeches written for them by professional speechwriters. All the words chosen were strategically used to push all the right buttons to gain the most undecided votes.
Vanity? Please. Running for President of the United States is ALL about vanity regardless of the party. Conscience? C’mon! They’ll say what you want to hear and do nothing. Once voted in, they’ll do what they want based off which corporation fattened their pocket the most.
Change? Pipline = God’s will? Seriously? Open your eyes and ears people. Get off the couch and quit watching the circus.
OK. I’m done.
If you only look at the frequency of word use, the speeches are percieved one way, and if you listen to the speeches, and where emphasis lies, they would be perceived another way. I think the cloud would be a more effective method if comparing a impromtu oral presentation, rather than a written speech.
I failed to mention that I enjoyed your creativity. My apologies.
[...] Joe Biden [...]
@shitreesdotnet: You’re “facts” are off, but you’re correct to warn people to actually look at issues. USA Today has a match game if you want to see which candidate’s views you match up with.
@Scott: Good points. You can’t really compare the two speeches, but you can compare what they focused on. I thought it strange that one of Palin’s big words was “man.” The others — for Biden and Palin — made sense to me. (The Democrats also use McCain’s and Palin’s names. The Republicans seem to be using that old political trick of addressing their opponents as “my opponent” — allegedly it keeps the focus on them, not the opponent.)
@I. Rule: Thanks!