graphic designr » Barack Obama

As-it-happens Election Day timeline

Erica Smith — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:34:06 +0000

Election Day coverage from the first ballots cast in New Hampshire until the end. The timeline will be updated throughout the day and night. (Good luck to everyone working Election Day.)

Before the polls close, head over to Presidential Bingo for new bingo cards!

Newspaper endorsements compared

Erica Smith — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 08:23:45 +0000

Editor & Publisher has been a list of presidential endorsements. I’ve mapped them, looking for geographic trends. For the papers that have endorsed either Barack Obama or John McCain, I have also mapped their 2004 and 2000 endorsements. It’s interesting to see the colors change — or if they do. E&P recently reported that Republicans usually win the endorsement race. So far this year, Obama is leading by a wide margin.

= Democrat = Republican = Not available or no endorsement (2000 and 2004)

2008

2004

2000

The maps will be updated as more endorsements are announced.

Obama vs. McCain: What they said at their last debate

Erica Smith — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 03:53:51 +0000

Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain met for their third and final debate on Wednesday night at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. CNN has the transcript; I took what was said by each candidate and, using Wordle, created word clouds. The clouds represent the 150 most frequently used words; the larger the word, the more often it was said.

Barack Obama

Obama said “going” 57 times (it has been his most dominant word at each debate), “think” 56 times, “now” and “make” 38 times each, and “senator” 36 times.

John McCain

McCain said “senator” 57 times (it was the most dominant word at the first debate, and came in second at the second debate), “Obama” 49 times, “America” 34 times, “need” 32 times and “going” 29 times.

There was a lot of talk about a plumber named Joe. McCain said “Joe” 21 times (it’s below “senator” in his word cloud) and “Joe’s” twice; he said “plumber” eight times and “Biden” (the other Joe) twice. Obama said “Joe” nine times; he said “plumber” three times, “Biden” twice and “Biden’s” once.

Take a look at clouds from the first and second debate. Vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin had one debate.

Since we’re talking about politics, take a look at newspaper endorsements across the country.

Thanks again to everyone who stopped by and shared President Bingo. More political debate cards will be coming.

Mapping newspaper endorsements

Erica Smith — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:14:29 +0000

Three weeks to Election Day, and several newspapers are announcing who they are endorsing. Editor & Publisher has a running list. Lists are nice, but I wanted to see if there were geographic trends. This map will be updated as more papers endorse either Democrat Barack Obama (blue markers) or Republican John McCain (red markers).

Obama vs. McCain: What they said at the 2nd debate

Erica Smith — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 05:25:09 +0000

Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain were at it again — their second debate was at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. CNN has the transcript of the debate; I took who said what and, using Wordle, created word clouds. The clouds represent the 150 most frequently used words; the larger the words, the more often it was said. The format of this debate was different from the first, the tone was different, but the word clouds for each candidate are similar to the first debate.

Barack Obama

Obama said “going” 68 times, “got” 46 times, “senator” 44 times, “McCain” 38 times and “make” 37 times.

John McCain

McCain said “know” 53 times, “senator” 35 times; “Obama” and “people” 26 times each; “America” 25 times and “Americans” 20 times. The answer you really want to know: McCain said “my friends” 19 times and “my friend” three times.

The next (and last) debate is next Wednesday at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and shared President Bingo today! I have a few words and phrases to change, and a few to take out, before the next debate. Suggestions are always welcome.

Obama vs. McCain debate: What they said

Erica Smith — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 04:01:14 +0000

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain debated at the University of Mississippi on Friday night. CNN has the transcript of the debate. From the transcript, I separated what Obama said vs. what McCain said and, using Wordle, created word clouds. The clouds represent the 150 most frequently used words; the larger the word, the more often it was used.

Barack Obama:

John McCain:

Word cloud from Obama’s speech

Erica Smith — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:28:12 +0000

Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president Thursday night. The text of his speech, highlighting the 150 most common words:

Fist-bump like a pro (Or how newspapers can be fun)

Erica Smith — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:43:00 +0000

J. Peder Zane is a columnist for the News & Observer — proving that newspapers can be topical, can use multimedia to tell stories and can be downright fun. I talked to the star of this afternoon:

How did you come up with the video?
After (Barack Obama’s) Tuesday’s night speech, an editor suggested we write a story about the fist-bump. This sounded a bit lame; the fist bump has been around so long even I know about it. I’ve been posting some video commentaries the past few weeks and figured this was a great chance to use some deadpan humor that can be harder to convey in print. Hence our mockumentary.

What’s the feedback been like? (Everyone I’ve sent it to has loved it.)
Most people have liked it, though I haven’t got any calls from Hollywood — yet. A few folks said it was stupid, but that was kind of the point so I took that as a compliment too.

Who were your co-stars?
The man in the spectacles in our rock critic David Menconi, the other strapping lad is our TV critic, Danny Hooley. I figured if I used them, I’d limit the criticism.

The humpty-bump was genius — were there other “bump” ideas?
We tried to think of every word that rhymed with bump (and knock, in case we went with knuckle knock). We didn’t have enough time to include the cluster dump (a bunch of people fist-bumping) or the dump bump (good for break-ups).

Now you can fist-bump like a pro!

Got the blues

Erica Smith — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:29:11 +0000

There was great debate over who created a pro-Obama, anti-Clinton “1984″ ad. The production work really is quite amazing. Well, today it came to light who the creator is.

Reputation Defender does just that. Now they say they can delete comments, posts, even photos. But I’m not sure how that really works. I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one who Googled prospective employees, though:

1/3 of employers screen job candidates using search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. 11.5 percent … look through social-networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Xanga for the profiles of job candidates.

ODDS & ENDS
â€¢ Greg discovered how to sing the blues.
â€¢ The internet makes people bitchy!
â€¢ Spell check (and other add-ons) for Firefox!