Comments on: the future for the presidential candidates is cloudy

the future for the presidential candidates is cloudy

geos — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:28:47 -0800

Tag-clouds for the first debates of the Democratic and Republican primaries. via the kreat orange satan

By: geos

geos — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:32:03 -0800

it was interesting to see that the third tier candidates like say Biden and Ron Paul tended to have very evenly distributed words. as a very unscientific observation I would say that the candidates best able to communicate their message (in a relentlessly TV driven political evironment) are those able to repeat simple phrases clearly. By that standard Edwards and Clinton in the democratic primary and Huckabee and Romney in the republican primary seem to have the most concentrated message... surprisingly Obama looks, well, cloudy from his tag-cloud. also, tag cloud, tag-cloud, tagcloud?

By: Artw

Artw — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:39:46 -0800

Odd, Guilliani gets a big YORK but no NEW - zapped by some kind of common word filter perhaps? So are people generally okay with the use of term Tag Cloud even if it's actually just sizing words according to usage in a body of text? I was writing a little mini app that did just that and I was debating whether it was the right term.

By: geos

geos — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:40:27 -0800

and the tagclouds were created by: tagcrowd.com

By: cell divide

cell divide — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:40:51 -0800

Thought it was interesting that McCain and Clinton both had "president" as one of their main words. Those two, to me, are the closest to power and thus lust after it the most.

By: malaprohibita

malaprohibita — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:41:58 -0800

Huh. Really interesting. More interesting than the actual debates if you ask me. I can imagine future political analysis where past debates are mapped with tag clouds to determine which words winning candidates used most. It would also be interesting to see who got the most words in and how that correlates to election/poll performance.

By: geos

geos — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:42:58 -0800

zapped by some kind of common word filter perhaps? well you have to or 'a' and 'the' will dwarf everything else... though 'new' seems like it ought not to be filtered. it seems like depending on the content certain words should be filtered, which might be hard to do algorithmically.

By: Falconetti

Falconetti — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:44:01 -0800

Let the armchair psychologizing begin!

By: geos

geos — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:47:40 -0800

I can imagine future political analysis where past debates are mapped with tag clouds to determine which words winning candidates used most. what do you think all those political 'consultants' are doing? Ever since JFK, TV messaging/marketing consultants have dominated national politics in the US. Ronald Reagan and Clinton I, represent the high-points for each party in terms of TV friendly candidates.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:52:52 -0800

Romney totally was playing the Reagan game..check his words out compared to the others.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:55:31 -0800

I could not believe these videos. I'm sure that these clowns will never get elected but then again, I said the same thing in 1999 about GWB.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:55:47 -0800

Yeah, Romney really sticks out. This is a great tool for analysis.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:57:29 -0800

Arrgh. One and Two.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Fri, 04 May 2007 13:09:42 -0800

Very concise and intriguing if not outright revealing. Obama's set standout as being the least buzzword-y among the Democrats. Hilary's set makes it look like she just kept saying "Ready to be President. Ready to be President. Ready to be President."

By: tadellin

tadellin — Fri, 04 May 2007 13:12:03 -0800

zapped by some kind of common word filter perhaps? The last sentence of the second paragraph on the Republican link specifically says that common words were filtered, and points to Guliani and "new" as a specific example.

By: Mblue

Mblue — Fri, 04 May 2007 13:17:40 -0800

Presidential candidates' website tag clouds. The site appears to be overloaded at the moment.

By: billypilgrim

billypilgrim — Fri, 04 May 2007 13:22:15 -0800

Very fascinating.

By: willie11

willie11 — Fri, 04 May 2007 13:25:49 -0800

Rally great and timely post. I'm game for putting previous debates through a similar system and comparing our results to those of the formal "winner" if anyone else is. These debates are usually a matter of public record and are available back to Nixon-Kennedy. Anyone interested or at least know of an intuitive tag cloud programs? I think it would be an interesting experiment in message and communications.

By: willie11

willie11 — Fri, 04 May 2007 13:28:41 -0800

duh, tagcrowd. sorry

By: switchsonic

switchsonic — Fri, 04 May 2007 13:55:00 -0800

Thanks for the link to that website. It's fantastic. Going in the bookmarks...

By: amberglow

amberglow — Fri, 04 May 2007 14:08:33 -0800

These clouds are more important to the GOP base than any other: ... Substance isn't important, policy and experience are not important, it's the "presidential look and feel" that are critical to the GOP at this point in time. The base wants someone to sell them bullshit, someone whose eyes sparkle when they say "a thousand points of light" when what they really mean is "screw the poor" because the mouth breathers don't quite feel good about that and they really, really want to. Ronald Reagan gave them that, and those who remember him as "The Great Communicator" (*cough*) were only to happy to let him unlock the gate and let all his rich buddies in to loot the place in return. ...

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 04 May 2007 14:35:26 -0800

Interesting stuff, I watched some of the GOP debate and was struck by how many of them I'd never heard of before. I find it rather interesting that there are a whole bunch of comments on the Democrat tag cloud link and not a single one on the GOP tag cloud link.

By: Simon!

Simon! — Fri, 04 May 2007 15:32:52 -0800

I think I'd vote for Duncan Hunter if he cut out the ephemera and just shouted "BORDER! FENCE!" during his speeches.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Fri, 04 May 2007 15:39:43 -0800

Interesting time analysis--Romney had the most.

By: DU

DU — Fri, 04 May 2007 17:27:10 -0800

I bet they filter out numbers too and all of the "Yorks" were along the lines of "The Iraqo-Saddamists who hit New York on 9/11". Also, it seems pretty revealing that Romney felt it necessary to hammer on "America" and "American". Mormons feel like foreigners to most of America. And I can see why the "true conservatives" like Thompson--he's all about the states. Of course, these same "true conservatives" also support Bush. You remember, the guy that took the National Guard soldiers from the states and also wanted to overrule the state of Florida on Schiavo. But he (back to Thompson now) knows how to talk the talk they say they want to hear.

By: Mo Nickels

Mo Nickels — Fri, 04 May 2007 18:30:10 -0800

What's the deal with the word "going" and the Republican candidates? Is it simply an abundance of forward-looking statements?

By: aaronetc

aaronetc — Fri, 04 May 2007 21:45:05 -0800

Actually, that's not the Thompson that true conservatives like -- it's Tommy, and they like Fred Thompson, who's not officially in yet.

By: taosbat

taosbat — Fri, 04 May 2007 22:39:47 -0800

Mmmm....text stats....drool: I can have Brainz?

By: trii

trii — Sat, 05 May 2007 18:34:18 -0800

Interesting to me that Obama had "women" and "families" so prominently in his cloud.