US VP Debate

By: Jeff Clark    Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008

Last night was the US VP debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. I've taken the words from the debate and added them to my interactive transcript analyzer. The static image shown below gives an idea of what was discussed.

static image only - click to use the interactive application

A few simple observations:

  • It looks like a fairly balanced debate in terms of who spoke the most and length of speeches.
  • After the introductions the primary topic was the economy and jobs.
  • This shifted into talk about taxes.
  • The next subject was energy and coal. Palin used the word 'energy' 26 times compared to Biden's 9.
  • There was a short section on 'marriage'.
  • 'Iran', 'Iraq', 'War', and foreign policy were next.
  • Not discussed directly were 'religion' and 'immigration' .
I have chopped off the word count information to improve legibility in the image. Try out the interactive version to see all the details for yourself.

 


Marc Smith
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Presidential Debate