Two weeks of Republican and Democratic conventioneering concluded last night with President Barack Obama's speech accepting the nomination of his party. Whether one considered his speech brilliant oratory or just a good effort, in many ways it was typical of nomination acceptance speeches given by incumbent presidents in recent times.
To echo a recent theme, let's do the arithmetic.
Looking at convention acceptance speeches by both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates between 1980 and 2012, incumbents tended to receive more applause breaks from the crowd, mentioned their opponent less frequently and almost never mentioned their predecessor. For Obama, last night's speech was interrupted 75 times by applause, up from 67 during his speech in 2008. He mentioned his opponent Mitt Romney just once, whereas in 2008 he mentioned John McCain 21 times (the most mentions of an opponent by any nominee, Republican or Democrat, since 1980). And Obama did not mention his predecessor George W. Bush once last night, compared to eight mentions in 2008.
Democratic incumbent nominees tended to use more humor and get more laughs than non-incumbent nominees, and their audiences were less likely to boo at the mention of their opponents. Obama received six laughs from the Charlotte audience and there was no outburst of booing the opponent. In 2008, the audience laughed just twice and booed three times. Incidentally, for Republican incumbent nominees, the exact opposite was true - their audiences laughed less and booed more compared to Republican non-incumbent nominees.
The only arithmetic departure from the norm in last night's speech was that it was shorter than Obama's 2008 speech by 365 words (8% shorter). Other nominees from both parties going back to 1980 gave longer speeches as incumbents than they did when they were challengers. President Clinton set the record on this score: his 1996 convention speech was 60 percent longer than his 1992 speech at 7,073 words (average is 4,683 for Democratic nominees).
Moving from arithmetic to language arts, Obama's convention speech was consistent with the campaign objective of making the 2012 election a choice rather than a referendum. Using frequency analysis of the terms used most often throughout the speech, the words "choice" and "choose" appeared a combined 20 times, more than any other term or concept except for "America/Americans" which appeared a combined 24 times.
If anyone thought Obama's speech would be less "hopey-changey" than last time, they would be only half right. The speech was actually more "hope"-full (sorry, couldn't resist), in that the word "hope" was mentioned 14 times in his 2012 speech compared to four times in 2008. But of course, as the incumbent, he only mentioned change seven times compared to 17 times in 2008. Other prominent terms such as "believe" and "future" combined to create an overall optimistic narrative arc to last night's speech.
On a policy level, "jobs" was prominent, along with other employment-related terms such as "pay" and "workers." And in a pointed contrast with his opponent, Obama mentioned "war" nine times.
Word clouds show the 50 words most frequently used by each of the nominated Democratic presidential candidates at their respective conventions from 1980 through 2012. Visualizations were generated using TagCrowd.com.
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 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Fortunately, the three hundred million of us can heal what's wrong - and do so without overly-intrusive government "help".
So, convention speeches may be good or they may be bad. They may make people laugh, boo, applaud, jeer. But they're just words - fleeting sounds that may touch an emotional chord - but that's all. On the balance, they really don't matter much and don't accomplish anything.
Two Supreme Court Judges voted on many Koch Brother back cases without excusing themselves of conflict of interest. I know this does not inerest you. Just another example of how they are with their Yearly Secret Meeting are getting total Control of WE THE PEOPLE
Totally wrecking the Middle class. You c annot read about the Truth of history. You like to make up your own. Yes words are not Fair when they fre lies.
We the People need a Fair shake. I gather you do not believe that either.
I feel sorry for you.
AS I SAID TOO MANY TIMES ABOUT MANY ARTICLES THATIT IS NICE THAT YOU GET PAID FOR WHAT YOU WROTE BUT DO NOT GET TO THE MEAT AND POTATOES OF WHAT IS HAPPENING TO YOU? AND WE THE PEOPLE.
ASK YOURSELF WHY?
In other words: Self-serving. Yes, presidents of both parties do it.
The incumbent inflates his accomplishments while denying failure of any real consequence. Conventions have become just extravagant dog and pony shows. No wonder viewership is down.
Obama, when asked how he would grade his performance, replied, "incomplete." The implication clearly was, "I need four more years to "complete" the task of saving America", etc.
Is that his best shot? Yeah, I've pretty much failed so far, but if given four more years of doing the same things, I will magically rescue our country.
It is obvious that President Obama works harder at saving his own job that he does saving ours.
Does this mean we should expect an IDENTICAL outcome?
In a few weeks, "either the Republicrat ($X billion dollars in bribes accepted), or the Demoblican ($Y billion)" will be "elected," based on which number is larger, "$X" or "$Y."
Once the perfunctory stage-business of "the election" is dutifully completed, there will either be $X billion or $Y billion dollars' worth of "orders to fill," and this will be the sole consideration during the next four years. The American people will no longer be of any concern ... they'll take whatever bone they're tossed until the next election season cycles around.
You will kindly notice that the game is thoroughly rigged in favor of "one of the two equal heads of the Two Party System, LLC." It's a faux choice; it's no choice at all.
Very similar to most of the campaigning which was done by Obama and the Democrats in 2008, the Democratic Convention was EXCELLENT on speeches. Contrary to everything we know about Barack Obama, Michelle Obama gave a wonderful speech filled with inaccurate, disengenuous statements about him. Bill Clinton was similarly eloquent in explaining what a wonderful job Obama has done, and how his administration has been successfully dealing with the 'disaster' he inherited. Since "no president could have done any better," we should re-elect him. Elizabeth Warren and Sandra Fluke were almost believable when defining Romney and GOP as anti-women. The audience loved the speeches and Obama is once again the Messiah.
Unfortunately, great SPEECHES have very little to do with problem solving and MOST of our problems have been made worse during the Obama presidency.
You are giving either the GOP or the Democratic Party way too much credit, RiverBasin. Politicians want to get elected, and they want power. Actions speak much louder than words, and Obama has been an abysmal FAILURE. It is time to vote him and his administration out.
Alan is right-we get too much "fluff" and not nearly enough substance.