The Presidential Debates
Analysis by Quantified Perception
Have you watched the presidential debates so far? You may
wonder how the democrats differ from the republicans, in terms of the language
used and the concepts highlighted. Quantified Perception has analyzed the
transcripts of all three debates to find the crucial areas where the two
parties differ, and where they coincide. To our surprise, they really don’t differ
much. The words, concepts, and phrases are so close to the same that the only
meaningful conclusion is that everyone is talking the same talk.
We used the transcripts from the debates to evaluate the
respective language, adjusting each for the number of words reported for each
debate.
Of course the language of the campaign dominates, with the
words “president” (or “commander in chief”) and “campaign” dominating the
remarks. But other (slightly) less obvious words and concepts dominate the
language of the candidates for both parties. In fact, the most common words in
all three debates are the same, and rank the same:
“people”, “country”, “issues,”
“things” and “going”.
Word
|
Rank in second Republican
Debate
|
Rank in first Republican
Debate
|
Rank in Democratic Debate
|
people
|
1
|
3
|
1
|
about
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
but
|
3
|
5
|
3
|
do
|
4
|
1
|
4
|
will
|
5
|
||
they
|
6
|
||
he
|
7
|
||
think
|
8
|
9
|
|
I’m
|
9
|
||
would
|
10
|
||
if
|
11
|
7
|
|
want
|
12
|
10
|
The most common concepts show a similar pattern. They tend
to be the same concepts in each debate, and in roughly the same order:
Business - battle - family - security
The most common concept in all three debates is "business,"
including the words economy, finance, industry, and wealth. Interestingly, the
democrats said “wealth” often, while republicans said “deal”.
“War” is the next common concept, dominated by the word “war”
and including “combat,” “fight,” and “battle.”
“Family” was the third most referenced concept, with
“children,” “babies,” and “daughters” said frequently. “Daughters” was used much
more often than “sons,” indicating some sort of gender bias in both camps.
“Security” was fourth most used concept, including the words
“care” and “safety.”
Truth was another concept, indicated by “fact”, “actually,” “truth,”
“reality,” and “real.”
“Way” is another frequent word, but that is partially due to
Trumps penchant for asides, as in “by the way,” and the dominance he had in
speaking in both republican debates.
The phrasing in all three debates was also surprisingly consistent,
with the top 15 or so phrases used often in all three. The tables below show
that the top 15 phrases from the democratic debate match five of the top
phrases from the first republican debate and ten from the second.
Phrases
|
Rank in Democratic Debate
|
Rank in first Republican Debate
|
Rank in second Republican Debate
|
we have
|
1
|
||
thank you
|
2
|
||
that we
|
3
|
4
|
3
|
we need
|
4
|
1
|
1
|
this country
|
5
|
5
|
5
|
we’re going
|
6
|
||
it was
|
7
|
11
|
|
we are
|
8
|
19
|
|
you have
|
9
|
5
|
|
wall street
|
10
|
||
climate change
|
11
|
||
you know
|
12
|
2
|
2
|
united states
|
13
|
4
|
|
if you
|
14
|
9
|
17
|
but I
|
15
|
12
|
Quantified Perception used its Text Analysis Profiler for
this analysis. Among other things, the Profiler determines a “Myers-Briggs”–like
profile for a document. All three transcripts profiled as “ENTP”, with
remarkable similar ratios of the profile vectors:
1st Republican Debate 2nd
Republican Debate Democratic
Debate
The Wall Street Journal years ago referred to “Remocrats”
and “Depublicans.” I wonder if they will revive that language, if this
continues…
