November 1, 2012

An Election 2012 cheat-sheet – where to watch out for

This roots of this blog actually lie in some miscellaneous thoughts on the U.S. Presidential election of 2008. Four years on, and another election less than a week away, I thought it would be useful – for me if for no-one else – to have a quick look through what’s “in play” this time around.

The U.S. Presidential election is not so much an exercise in democracy – on a number of occasions, the victor has not been the person with most votes – as it is a race to 270. There are, as many know, 538 Electoral College votes and these are (almost always) given at state-level in a winner takes all contest. He who gets 270 or more (Obama won 365 in 2008) is President.

Given it is not so much one vote as it is the aggregation of a number of winner-takes-all contests, this actually makes it a good bit easier to talk about probabilities of winning. (Certain pundits have actually embarrassed themselves in this regard in the last couple of days, by showing a total lack of understanding of either the college system or more likely basic statistics.)

The bankers

Like every good democracy, a candidate needs the support of bankers to get up and running. Analysts typically write off 26 of the 51 States (yes, I know D.C. isn’t really a state) as bankers one way or another, with sixteen (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming) staunch Republican and ten staunch Democrat.

Advantage Romney? The problem for Republicans is that just one of these sixteen – Texas, with 38 – is a big hitter in college votes. Tennessee and Alabama together bring another 20, while the remaining lucky thirteen account for seventy in total.

The ten Democrat states are split evenly between big and small. California, with 55 votes, is huge, while Illinois (20) and New York (29) also matter a lot. Maryland (11) and Massachusetts (10) are also double-digits, while the remainder (D.C., Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Vermont) account for just 3 or 4 each. The end result is that, on the road to 270, it is advantage Democrats after accounting for the bankers, 142-128.

The likely lads

Those thinking to themselves that a system where voters in just half the states have any chance of influencing the outcome does not sound like much of a democracy, turn away now! A further 14 States are considered (by Real Clear Politics among others) to be likely or leaning one way or the other. Likely means a double-digit lead in the polls for one candidate, while leaning means a lead of 5-10 percentage points (statistically significant, one might say).

Good news for Republicans is that three states – worth 37 votes in total, Georgia, Indiana and Missouri – are likely Republican states. Indiana (with its 11 college votes) is the only state choosing Obama in 2008 that appears to have reconsidered – Romney is ahead by 12% in the polls. Missouri is a funny one as Romney’s double-digit lead in the polls is at odds with much tighter margins in the last three elections. In addition to those three states, there are four GOP-leaning states also, most significantly Arizona (11 votes) but also South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3) and Montana (3).

There also seven states likely or leaning Democrat. Five states accounting for 42 votes – Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico and Washington – are “likelies”, while Minnesota and Oregon account for a further 17 votes leaning Democrat. All of these – except New Mexico in 2004 – have been blue states since 2000, so it is relatively safe to bet that they will stay that way.

After the bankers and the likely-lads are all totted up, the Democrats can effectively count on getting 201 electoral college votes, while the Republicans are looking at 191, assuming Missouri polls are accurate.

The toss-ups

So the kernel of the U.S. election is that its outcome will almost certainly come down to just 11 states, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Of these 11 states, five currently have Obama ahead by more than 2 percentage points (skirting the bounds of statistical significance). What is crucial for the outcome of the election is that these five account for a meaty 70 college votes: Michigan (16 votes), Nevada (6), Ohio (18), Pennsylvania (20) and Wisconsin (10). If these five states were to hold for Obama, that would be that – 271 votes with six states still to account for.

The only toss-up currently going Romney’s way is North Carolina (15). From a GOP viewpoint, it would want to – if Romney can’t take a state that only gave Obama a 0.3% margin in 2008, and was double-digit Bush territory in 2000 and 2004, then he’s in trouble. These forty-six states are shown in the graph above, and point to an Obama win.

A Romney win?

There are five states that are too close to call, most importantly Florida (29), but also Virginia (13), Colorado (9), Iowa (6) and New Hampshire (4). Romney is ahead in both Florida and Virginia at the moment (just).

Suppose he won those two. Adding them and North Carolina to the GOP total so far gives 248 votes. Pennsylvania looks beyond Romney’s reach so hence the focus on Ohio, where Obama is ahead by 2.3% in the polls. An Ohio win added on would leave Romney on 264 votes, just shy of the 270 needed. Colorado is a state that twice voted for Bush and has Obama only marginally ahead currently. Its nine votes would be enough for a Romney victory.

The cheat-sheet redux

So, what should you watch out for in the wee hours of next Wednesday morning?

Nevada and Ohio are Obama’s most fragile possessions of the 271 votes outlined above. Without their 24 votes, Obama would need Florida – or Virginia plus two of New Hampshire, Colorado and Iowa – to win. If he keeps those two, though, he is on course for re-election, barring surprises.

Potential surprises include an Obama win in North Carolina, if news of which broke early in the evening, you could retire relatively safe in the knowledge that Obama would be re-elected, or alternatively Obama struggling in any of Michigan, Pennsylvania or Washington.

Romney’s route to victory requires winning not just Florida and Virginia, where he is currently ahead, but also Ohio and Colorado.

If Arizona or Minnesota – or indeed anywhere else – is being discussed by pundits on the night as a possible upset, then it’s probably best to get the popcorn out, it’ll be a long night!

November 14, 2008

The Ballad of Barack Obama & Sarah Palin (or Manilow's Nightmare)

Following the success (my targets were small) of Brother, Can You Bail-out My Bank?, and given that I’ve spent an inordinate amount of my blog-time blogging about the election, I thought it only right to sign off on the election with a tribute to the election that was.

So, to the unmistakeable tune of – and with sincere apologies to – both Star Wars Cantina and Barry Manilow’s Copacabana, here is ‘The Ballad of Barack Obama & Sarah Palin’ (2008):

His name was Barack, he was half Kenyan
With a daughter on each side and a smile five small states wide
He ran for office, he sought election
And while he said “Oh, yes we can”, people worried bout this man
Across all fifty states, would he get the mandate?
But then he went to Berlin where they thought that he was great…

He was Barack… Barack Obama
Not to be confused with Osama
Here he is… Barack, Barack Obama
Jobs and emissions and TV transmissions
He was Barack…

Her name was Palin, she was Alaskan
McCain had set her loose, she loved to kill a moose
She spent a fistful, on her wardrobe
She talked to CBS, it put her handlers in distress
And then the crisis grew, and the bailout too
Didn’t have a chance, she’ll be back in two oh one two…

It was Barack… Barack Obama
Not to be confused with Osama
Here he is… Barack, Barack Obama
Oprah and Kerry, and even Chuck Berry
voted Barack…

His name is Barack, he was elected
But that was two weeks ago, he has to get on with the show
And pick a new dog, one from a shelter
Also a Secretary of State, a human would be great
John Kerry has the hair, or maybe picking Clinton’s fair?
It could have been Lieberman, but let’s not go there…

He was Barack… Barack Obama
Not to be confused with Osama
Here he is… Barack, Barack Obama
Jobs and emissions and TV transmissions
He was Barack…

(and continue through fade out)

November 7, 2008

From hope to promise to a new America tonight – Obama's speeches since 2004

There seems to be a bit of traffic to and through this blog, looking for word clouds of and/or commentary on President-elect Obama’s acceptance speech in Chicago. Given that until now there was nothing on that topic, I have a feeling they left relatively empty-handed. Let me fix that now, with a quick zip through Obama’s three key speeches, at the DNC in 2004, at the same event in 2008 and his most recent speech, in Chicago following his election as President.

Obama in 2004: A man of hope

The speech that marked Obama’s “explosion” on to the national scene in 2004 revolved primarily around the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, and the country at stake, America, as might be expected. The key concept aside from that which shines out is hope – one very much associated with the President-elect again since his election. A full word cloud is on wordle.net and previewed below.

Obama in August 2008: A man of promise

Four years later, as I’ve posted about previously, he’d moved from his hope to his promise – very apposite, seeing as his was now the focal points for others’ hopes, on which he was promising to deliver, rather than expressing his own views and hopes.

As I said at the time, this tied in a motif from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s famous “I have a dream” speech – again, something widely referenced in recent days – on America’s promissory note, of liberty for all, which it had up to then failed to cash.

Obama in November 2008: A new America tonight, people

Earlier this week, when elected President from next January, he gave another speech which was destined to be analyzed to death by those with nothing better to be doing, such as myself! (His inauguration speech will presumably be the next one to be put under such scrutiny…) The link to and preview of a word cloud of his most recent speech is below.

Hope, promise – and indeed that third keyword perhaps most associated by his campaign, change – do not feature in any meaningful way. It’s perhaps surprising that promise makes no appearance, given that his Chicago speech is really the national equivalent of his DNC speech, to just his party. He obviously decided that the time was not right for more promises, it was instead a time to reflect on what his election meant, not for him but about his country.

His clear message from the speech seems to be: “Tonight, people, we have a new America!”. Whatever about the internal reaction to the election – after all, only 52% of voters voted for him – global reaction would seem to agree with his main sentiment!

November 5, 2008

The genealogy-grammar paradox & Obama's endorsement of T&E Plumbing (or maybe it's the other way around)

The Huffington Post has an excellent collection of pictures from around the world, in response to the outcome of the US election – for more check out Election Day Around The World (PHOTOS).

I had to laugh at one in particular, the one from an hour down the road, Moneygall, County Offaly. The first thing that catches you off-guard is Mr. Obama’s somewhat atypical tan, for an Offaly scion. The second is the photo’s incongruity, following two photos from Kenya. The third thing is the haste to produce the ad, which seems to have produced a somewhat unexpected paradox. While complicated genealogical heritages stretching back over two centuries are no issue for this shrewd plumber, the age-old question of apostrophe or not seems to have suffered!

November 4, 2008

Last-minute prediction: Obama by a landslide! No, wait… a 269-269 electoral college dead heat

After all my poll-watching, I’ve decided to throw my hat in the rang one last time, and engage in that most dangerous of sports: the last-minute prediction. Last minute predictions give the predictor the least time to live in comfort in the time between prediction and outcome, and most danger of subsequent accusations of being wildly wrong despite having all the best poll data to hand. Hence, they’re not that popular.

Still, they are fun. So here goes. Let the ridiculing of me start in about 24 hours!

McCain has 134 votes from sixteen states ‘in the bag’, all unsurprisingly Bush states from 2000 and 2004: Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Utah, Idaho, Alaska and Wyoming. Of these, only Arizona even looks like wavering, and I think home bias will win through there. A further four states are going McCain’s way, worth 26 votes in total: Georgia, West Virginia, Montana, South Dakota. These twenty states would give McCain 160 votes.

Obama has 218 electoral college votes ‘in the bag’, it seems at this stage: all the Kerry-Gore states from the last two elections, plus Iowa (which went to Gore last time out) and New Hampshire (which went to Bush). That is, armed with little else but a range of polls and past voting records, I think Obama will easily win the following 18 states:

California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, Connecticut, Iowa, Oregon, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, DC, Delaware and Vermont

I also think it’s very likely that another 41 votes across three states are Obama’s, bringing him to 259 and just an Indiana or Missouri away from the US presidency: Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, again all Kerry-Gore states since 2000. (Although with Maine splitting its electoral college votes, technically he may only have 257 from these 21 states, but will more than likely make up for this by picking up two in Nebraska, which operates the same system.)

So Obama’s 21-20 victory in states would leave him 259-160 ahead.

What makes it ominous for McCain is that a further 47 electoral college votes look like they could be going Obama’s way – although these are most susceptible to a Bradley effect swing of say 5%, as his lead is smallest in these four states: Ohio (20), Virginia (13), Colorado (9), New Mexico (5). Of all these four states, only New Mexico in 2004 did not vote for Bush in the last two elections. If the Bradley effect or some other gap between poll and reality were to deny him even two of these states, Obama would still win the presidency.

And that’s before factoring in the six true toss-ups worth 72 votes, which interestingly are all Bush 2000-2004 states: Florida (27), North Carolina (15), Indiana (11), Missouri (11), Nevada (5), North Dakota (3). Current polls suggest this will probably split down the middle, maybe 32 to Obama and 40 to McCain. Taking these at face value, and assuming either (a) no Bradley effect, or (b) that the Bradley effect and the no-landline effect cancel each other out suggests a win for Obama in the region of 338 to 200.

If we take states like Arizona as safe and call this margin the top end, what’s the bottom end of the spectrum? A 5-point Bradley effect, or something similar, could cost Obama Florida (27), Ohio (20), Virginia (13) and possibly Colorado (9), worth together 69 votes. The mathematically sharp-minded amongst you will have spotted that a 338-200 outcome with 69 votes redistributed gives us: 269-269, a tie!

Personally, I think we’ll be closer to the upper end for Obama, but the fact that the polls leave us the possibility of a tie is certainly one to watch, if some states start falling unexpectedly on McCain’s side. Failing that, it may bring some electoral attention away from Florida and Ohio and Pennsylvania to Colorado for a change!

October 23, 2008

Eight weeks work yields seven states for Obama, just Montana (maybe) for McCain

Between mid and late September, the big story in terms of the state-by-state polls was McCain’s loss of his ‘medium’ states – i.e. those where he had some lead, but not a large one – such as Florida and North Carolina into ‘toss-up’ territory. Obama had managed to garner a few extra ‘strong’ electoral college votes, but nothing seemingly irreversible.

So, what’s happened in the last four weeks? Well, Obama’s overall increase in the national polls is very much old news at this stage, so what can state-by-state polls tell us above and beyond? Obama’s national performance is unsurprisingly replicated in RCP’s state-by-state poll statistics: he has managed to increase his vote by 3% or more in 22 of the 35 states covered by RCP, while McCain has only done similar in two states: Maine, which is solid Obama country, and Texas, which is of course safe McCain territory.

Of most note, from the state by state results, are the following:

Pennsylvania (21 votes), exceeded in electoral college votes by just four states, now looks like solid Obama territory, where his lead has increased from 48-44 to 51-41.
Ohio, worth 20 votes, has also moved from a toss-up towards Obama – four weeks ago, McCain had 1 point lead. Now, he trails 50-44.
Michigan (17) now looks unassailable for Obama, while the much-mooted Georgia (15) upset remains a possibility: in the last four weeks, McCain’s lead has shrunk from 12% to 6.8%.
There have been significant gains for Obama in other Tier 2 states, such as Virginia (13), and in particular Minnesota (10) and Wisconsin (also 10).

They are the most important changes – most other gains haven’t really had an impact. So where does that leave us all with only a couple of weeks left?

On September 1, McCain had 99 electoral college votes from 9 states of the 32 or so polled ‘in the bag’ (i.e. with a lead of 10% or more) and just one other state leaning (Georgia). Eight weeks on, all he has to show by way of gains are the three electoral college votes of Montana, where he enjoys a 5.6% lead.

Barack Obama could count, eight weeks ago, on the 156 electoral college votes of eight states, varying in size from California to Maine. Since then, he has added a further seven states – most notably Pennsylvania (21) and Michigan (17) as per above – and seventy-six electoral votes. Another 47 votes in four states are leaning towards Obama, including the sizeable Ohio (20) and Virginia (13).

So, with all that bad news for McCain, where are his glimmers of hope? Unfortunately, they don’t look like they’re hiding in the remaining undecided states. The five states that are still in toss-up territory, as per RCP’s listings, contain 69 electoral college votes – 42 of which are in Florida and North Carolina. Both of those states lean slightly towards Obama, as do two of the other three.

Perhaps his hopes lie in the possibility that people are more likely to say they’ll vote for Obama than actually will, as some have suggested. Or that the turnout from Obama demographics such as the young and African-American will be low. Then again, for each commentator saying that, there are others who believe that young voters are grossly under-represented in traditional polls conducted using landlines. Who knows?

Still, it could be worse… Just take a look at the Economist World Vote. Obama 8,957-31 McCain. Cuba’s status is surely the biggest turn-up for the books!

Altogether, a simple sum of all the strong, medium and weak votes for both candidates gives Obama a whopping 337-128 lead. As was famously once said, “they think it’s all over…”

October 1, 2008

Will even one state vote for McCain? Unlikely, it seems…

… if you take a look at the (nation) states included in the Economist’s ongoing survey, “Global Electoral College: What if the whole world could vote?“. That’s the quite frankly amazing conclusion of the early voting. In not one country on earth would the McCain-Palin ticket garner more votes, among Economist.com readers, than the Obama-Biden ticket. At first glance, the map below looks like a nice blue atlas, but then I realized the legend in the corner: blue means strong Obama (red, were it there, would indicate strong McCain).

Plucky El Salvador, worth 3 electoral votes out of the global 8,200 or so, is currently 50-50, having been pro-McCain earlier in the race (naturally, one does wonder about sample sizes, but let’s go with this for the moment). Interestingly, Kenya is most certainly a lock for Obama, it’s 100%-0% in his favour, due to his roots. If only US states were as loyal in elections!

The funny thing is, there’s a good part of the McCain team that probably wouldn’t even care about this result, were it to stay this way. McCain himself would presumably be somewhat hurt, given the relatively high levels of respect afforded to him by the typical non-American with an interest in US politics (such as myself). I’m guessing the Palin-side of the team, though, would be happy to interpret something like this as yet another indicator that Obama thinks too much like a non-American and not enough like the average American.

All in all, a fascinating exercise in global opinion polling, in my humble opinion.

September 29, 2008

Lean on who? McCain's problem – RCP poll analysis 09/29

A couple of weeks ago, at the height of Palin-mania, I did a quick cross-check of RCP’s electoral college polls compared to how they’d been at the start of September. At that time, there was lots of bad news for Obama, in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana, in particular. To compound that, McCain had turned lots of his ‘weak’ electoral votes (EV) into medium and strong votes, in places like Florida, Georgia and Virginia. On Sep 12, according to my analysis of the RCP figures, McCain was only one strong EV behind Obama (130-129, strong being 10 points or more ahead in the polls).

I wondered at the time, whether it represented a shift change in the race, i.e. was the Palin announcement setting a new average around which the numbers would shift, that average being closer to 50-50 than before, or was the announcement and its aftermath just one of the ups and downs around the existing average, i.e. that the average was going to stay something like 53-47 in Obama’s favour? It seems, if the evidence of the last two weeks or so is anything to go by, that it is more the latter than the former. Maybe it is the turmoil in the finanical markets, maybe it is the public tiring of Palin for a while as they did with Obama earlier in the year, or maybe it is something else again, but the last 15 days or so will have left the Obama-ites a lot happier than the McCain-ites.

A first glance at the polls could leave one to argue that it is not as cut and dry as one might think. McCain has actually gained ground, in a statistically significant sense (i.e. 3% or more) in more states than Obama (3-2). However, it’s the composition of those gains that is important – McCain’s gains have been non-battleground states, including New York and Maine, where his team probably doesn’t rate his chances, and Montana, which he was probably counting on anyway. Obama’s two gains have come in very interesting states: North Carolina, where he has overturned an 11% poll deficit to now have the slenderest of advantages 46.8-46.5, and New Mexico, which (by the simple rule of 5% or more means leaning) is now leaning to Obama 50.3-44.3. In addition, Michigan is now leaning to Obama (+6.6%), while Florida is back to being a toss-up state (46.0-47.6, in McCain’s favour). Ditto Missouri.

Further down the electoral vote pecking order, McCain did get some good news: Minnesota and Wisconsin have moved from leaning to Obama to being toss-ups – interesting to see how much the location of the RNC affected the former. The net of it all, in electoral vote terms, is the following (and bear in mind that the RCP analysis only covers about 480 of the 540 or so electoral votes):

Obama’s has managed to take 17 weak EVs and move them to strong (+14) and medium (+3). His strong EVs amount to 144, up from 130 on Sept 12 (but still below the 156 on Sep 1).
At the same time, he’s upped his weak EVs from 56 to 73, giving him a total of 274 – enough to win the Presidency even without the 15 smaller states missing from RCP’s analysis, were results to go exactly as the polls.
McCain, on the other hand, has seen a slight fall in his strong votes, from 129 to 117. It’s his medium level votes, though (that is, those states where he has a 5-10 point advantage) that have collapsed. Literally. While there are 11 solid pro-Bush 2000-04 states that McCain has ‘in the bag’ so to speak, Florida and Missouri’s conversion to toss-ups means that there is not a single state in the USA that leans to McCain, i.e. where he has a lead of between 5 and 10 points.

The upshot is that the simple sum of RCP polls gives Obama an 83-vote lead, up from just 27 votes on Sep 12. Better still for Obama, that lead is entirely made up of medium to strong poll showings, i.e. a lead of 5 points or more. Still, elections can swing on small margins and it is worthwhile noting that there are now almost 150 electoral votes in toss-up states (i.e. where neither candidate has a lead of 5 points). Were something small to happen to push the marginal voter back to the GOP, who knows what could happen? Vice-presidential debate anyone?

September 12, 2008

McCain solidifies his electoral votes – Pennsylvania, Michigan teeter

I had been wondering how long it would take for the electoral college system to reflect the polls, in the US presidential election. For quite a while, Obama seemed to be struggling in the polls but well ahead when all that was translated at the state level into electoral votes (EVs).

It seems that it’s finally happened! Real Clear Politics’ assessment of the polls and EV implications has Obama ahead by just one vote. I decided to have a look at the figures myself, as a non-expert of the whole college system. I looked at the figures from 1st September and from 12th September, to see where the change was happening, and drew out some ‘key points’, like a good consultant! First up, the bad news and the good news for Barack Obama – there’s more of the former!

Obama’s bad news

Pennsylvania (a chunky 21 EVs) has fallen from being an Obama likely to a toss-up – he was +6.8% and is now just +2.3% ahead of McCain.
Obama has also seen his lead shrink in the other large toss-up state that’s currently in his favour, Michigan (17 EVs), from +3.2% to +2.0%.
Indiana (11 EVs), a huge pro-Bush state in 2000/2004 (by 15-20%), was Obama +0.5% but has now swung substantially in McCain’s favour – he leads by 4.7%.
Obama’s is even taking a hit in states where he is probably safe, e.g. in New Jersey and Washington (together 26 EVs), his lead in both is has fallen by 1% and is now below 10% in each.

Obama’s good news

Minnesota (10 EV), however, has moved towards Obama, from +2.3% to +7.0%, while he has also almost doubled his lead in Iowa (7 EVs) to 9%.
Colorado (9 EVs) has gone from being a virtual tie (McCain +0.5%) to an Obama lead of +2.3%, while his lead in New Hampshire (4 EVs) is small but growing (from 1.4% to 3.3%).
His lead has grown in New York (31 EVs), already solidly pro-Obama.

So leaving out the solid states, there is bad news for Obama in states worth 49 EVs, and good news in states worth only 40 EVs. What about John McCain?

Florida (27 EVs) has moved from being a toss-up, McCain +1.8%, to looking little more solid for McCain – it’s now McCain +5%.
In Georgia (15 EVs), which was already leaning towards McCain, McCain’s lead in the polls has doubled to 13.4%.
North Carolina (15 EVs) has moved from toss-up with McCain tendencies (+4.3% in his favour) to being solid McCain ground (+11%).
Virginia (13 EVs) was a tie last time but is leaning towards McCain, by +2.6% – perhaps not a big surprise, as it was Bush +8% in 2000/2004.
Gained Indiana (11 EVs, as per above) and improved his lead in Missouri (11 EVs) from 2% to 7%

Nevada (5), New Mexico (5) and Montana (3) are new to the RCP polling stats. McCain is ahead by 9% in the latter, but the other two are both toss-ups and are split – Obama leads in New Mexico by 2.3%, while McCain leads in Nevada by 1%.

So, defining ‘Strong’ as a lead of 10% or more, ‘Medium’ as a lead of 5-10% and ‘Weak’ as a lead of less than 5%, how have things changed since the start of the month?

Obama’s ‘Strong’ count has fallen from 156 to 130 (269 are needed in total). The fall of 26 is spread relatively evenly across medium and weak Obama EVs, but by simple polls, it suggests that Obama would get 246 EVs out of the 35 states for which there are data available.
McCain’s big improvement has been turning his weak votes, of which there were 82, into Mediums or even Strongs – having trailed Obama 156-99 in strong EVs at the start of the month, he’s just one behind now (130 to 129). He’s also moved about 25 votes from weak to medium.

By my simple count of the polls, and including college votes of every strength, Obama still has a healthy 246-219 lead, although that’s almost a halving of his lead in about 2 weeks. It’ll be very interesting to check in again in two weeks and see whether that’s a temporary bounce due to the Palin effect or whether it’s the start of a prolonged trend!

August 29, 2008

It's the promise, stupid! Obama's DNC speech

The pre-speech favourite would no doubt have been “change”. Some thought it would be George Bush. Others John McCain, or Iraq. Others again thought it would actually be the economy, stupid – or something related, like jobs. Some commentators were speculating about Martin Luther King, given the date of the acceptance speech. Admittedly, very few thought it would be bowling and only the most tongue-in-cheek observer would have said frappacino or Chardonnay. Still, on the topic of what Obama talked about most when accepting the nomination for President from the Democratic party, they were all wrong!

So what was the top topic on Barack Obama’s mind – or at least in his mouth – when he gave his DNC acceptance speech yesterday evening in Denver? It turns out to have been promise – at least according to the official version of the speech given to the media. A full word cloud of the speech is below and makes for interesting reading, at least if you go away first and try to come up with a list of words you expect to make the top five:

Word cloud from Barack Obama's DNC acceptance speech, Aug 2008 — Obama DNC speech word cloud

Does this really tell us anything? Well, for a start, there were indeed lots of good old reliables. John McCain and George Bush do feature strongly, while change and the economy also feature. But the singular prominence of promise is striking. And I think it does go back to Martin Luther King.

To me, the concept of “promise” – both in the sense of something that is owed and in the sense of potential for the future – ties in quite strongly with the theme of the promissory note from Dr King’s speech 45 years ago. The exact passage from Dr King’s speech is:

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

You can see quite clearly both sides of promise coming out in that speech too. It then got me thinking about what were the great themes in Dr King’s speech. What did his word cloud look like? The answer is below:

Freedom is of course the clear winner, Negro probably wouldn’t make too many speeches these days, but if you look closely, you can of course see ‘promissory’ up in the top.

Interesting that a motif of Dr King’s speech could emerge as the key theme, replacing ‘change’, for Obama’s campaign. It will be interesting to see over the coming weeks whether “promise” suffers from the same problem “change” suffered from, and which all currencies suffer from when there is over-supply, a fall in real value!

Any takers on what McCain’s top phrase will be?