2008 Presidential Debate “Transcript Analyzer”
posted by on October 13 at 9:43 AM
The NYT has a cool on-line gadet.
In their transcripts of the last two presidential debates (the GOP debate last week and the Democratic one from Sept. 26) you can enter a word and immediately learn how many times each candidate said it, and you can click on a bolded link to see what they said about it.
For example, you can see that at the last GOP debate the word “Bush” came up 13 times. The moderator said it 8 of those times—like when the moderator asked Fred Thompson if Bush’s policy in Iraq has been a good one. Sam Brownback uttered the word 3 times and Ron Paul once and Tom Tancredo once.
Meanwhile, Bush got 11 mentions at the Democratic debate: 4 times from the moderator, once by Joe Biden, three times by Hillary Clinton, once by John Edwards, once by Mike Gravel, and once by Bill Richardson.
What a great idea. With all the technology out there available to the average schmoe with a modem, I'm surprised the debates haven't been chopped, diced, and julienned a thousand ways yet. Guess it's too early... There will be some fun-having when 2008 really gets rolling.
Wow...that's the wonky-ish thing I've heard of so far in this election.
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