How should we judge a speech from our political candidates? We talk about their charisma, their talking points, their promises, and their gestures. What about simply looking at their words? In a recent article Wired posted word clouds of speeches from the Democratic and Republican conventions. Words that are said more frequently are bigger (color doesn’t matter). I’m not seriously suggesting we evaluate our candidates this way, but it is worth a look. Can we learn anything from these word clouds? In case you’re curious, these word clouds were generated from wordle.net.
First, Barack Obama’s speech:
Second, John McCain’s speech:
