OOPS! I SAID THAT ALOUD?:

Bush and Kerry - Toe toToe and Word for Word (Robert Beard, 10/11/04, MediaChannel.Org)

George Bush emphasized the fear factor in his remarks Friday night during the second presidential debate, while John Kerry struggled to throw off the "flip-flop" image placed on him by the Republicans and show voters that he can make a decision without wavering.

Bush painted a much more dangerous world than Kerry and his response to it is decisiveness: he used the word 'decision' 16 times last night to Kerry's five mentions. Both candidates talked equally about war (17 times each) and Iraq (13 times each), but their word choice shows differences in the ways they talked about these subjects. Bush mentioned Hussein 13 times, Kerry, only four but Kerry brought up Osama bin Laden four times to Bush's two, as they jockeyed around Bush's strengths and weaknesses.

Bush prefers to depict the war, too, in more dire terms. He used the following words: destruction (10 times to Kerry's five), terrorists (14 times to Kerry's five), weapons (19 times to Kerry's eight), weapons of mass destruction (nine times to Kerry's four), and threat (13 times to Kerry's six).

Kerry, on the other hand, wanted to make clear that he 'has a plan': Kerry repeated 'I have a plan' 15 times (Bush 0), in response to criticisms that he is indecisive and easily swayed from policy agendas for political reasons.

Textual analysis of the speech of the two candidates provides a good measure of how the candidates performed, plus insight into what was preeminent in their thoughts as they spoke.

Mr. Kerry saved his most disastrous word choices for his Sunday profile in the NY Times Magazine, where calling terrorism a prostitution-like nuisance is going to have him on the defensive again this whole week.

MORE:
Cheney: Garden State 'moving toward' Republican victory (The Associated Press, 10/11/04 )

His presence in the Garden State made it clear that the state, which has consistently voted Democratic in presidential elections, is seen as being up for grabs Nov. 2.

"As Election Day draws nearer, one thing that's been very clear in this state is New Jersey's moving toward a Bush-Cheney victory," Cheney told supporters gathered at a Burlington County high school.

Cheney and two other speakers at the rally also criticized Kerry for saying in a recent interview in The New York Times Magazine that, "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance."

"This is naive and dangerous," Cheney said Monday.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 11, 2004 12:58 PM