The campaign this week

Posted at 1:27 PM on September 18, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

The presidential campaign returns to Minnesota on Friday when Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin stop for a rally at the Anoka County airport in Blaine.

Inputting transcripts of various appearances this week into Wordle provides a glimpse of the common themes of the candidates' major appearances this week. Joe Biden gave a speech. Barack Obama appeared on Letterman. Both gave an interview to Katie Couric.

Gov. Palin addressed a rally in Nevada, and was on FoxNews for an interview. Sen. McCain appeared on Good Morning America and also gave an interview to Katie Couric.

These displays do not include yesterday's town hall meeting held by McCain and Palin (I haven't been able to find a transcript).

Here is McCain/Palin's week so far:

Here is Obama/Biden's week so far:

Neither is particularly illuminating. Where it gets somewhat more interesting is when you submit the transcripts of TV ads the candidates unveiled this week.

Here's Obama's:

Here's McCain's:

In McCain's speeches, the most highlighted word is "Obama." In Obama's ads, the most highlighted word is "McCain."

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Comments (4)

Looks like Bob could not find a hot story today.

Posted by bigalmn | September 18, 2008 1:56 PM

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While this story may not deserve "hot" status, it does show something about the tone of the campaigns. It seems unlikely that each candidate would say the other candidate's name more than his own if they were running positive campaigns.

Posted by brian | September 18, 2008 2:43 PM

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I personally do not like campaign ads.

They are just barbs from one candidate to the other. I wish that the candidates would focus on they views and values, and not his or her opponent.

I drone out ads from either candidate because it is most likely to be false or exaggerated.

I would pay more attention to ads if that candidate never mentions his or her opponent!!

Posted by Missy | September 19, 2008 10:22 AM

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Here is the link for a Wordle I created from this blog post involving Wordle.
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/198357/WordleBlogNewsCut

Posted by yup | September 19, 2008 2:11 PM

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