Word clouds show visually what words were important in last night's presidential debate. Romney's word cloud had more number-words like "number", "million", "billion", "trillion", "percent," and "rate." It says that numbers matter more than what happens to people. Obama's word cloud had more people-words like "families", "folks", "middle-class", "help", "security" and "opportunity". Obama's words were more performance related like "best", "figure", "system", "problem", "reason", "replace" and "able". Romney's performance words went back to numbers like "lose", "lower" and "raise".
Romney's Word Cloud:
Obama's Word Cloud:
Other Impressions:
My impression is that Romney created yet another version of his plans, which means that you can NOT believe that he will keep his word on any of it. Especially since he has taken directly contradictory stands. This version of Romney was the most supportive of the middle class. So which of the many versions would someone actually believe is the real one?
Most of Romney's math is just magic. Mostly I was distracted with Romney expressions which were linked to his performance, rather than content. He really likes his new gestures and movement. He proudly refrained from licking his lips too much. His voice was higher than normal and nervous. It felt that he was over-reving his motor the whole time.
There were many prominent fact problems but I am sure that many others would cover that. By my rough editing, Romney had about 16% more words than Obama. His grade level was lower. I found it hard to follow. It sounded like a bunch of sound bites more than a narrative. Hence, I felt that Romney's ramblings were running rampant over the debate. Romney gave a vague impression of winning because he was louder, more insistent and talked more. Most of all, Romney won because people expected him to say something incredibly stupid and he managed not to do that.