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Which Way Should the Wind Blow?

Don't expect politicians, even the good ones, to do your job for you. Politicians are like weather vanes. Our job is to make the wind blow. - David R. Brower

We all agree that in the Presidential campaign of 2004, just about anybody but Bush will do. George W. Bush's record is that bad. But in choosing a champion to go up against Bush, we can make some decisions about who would be best for the job. To nip a bit from Brower's quote, at this point in the campaign we have the power to decide in which way the political winds of opposition should be blowing.

With nine candidates vying for our attention, however, it can be difficult to make clear comparisons. Different candidates' words appear on different days, often answering different questions. A single forum in which candidates answer the very same questions would be nice, wouldn't it?

Well! Fortunately for us, MoveOn.org has supplied just such a forum. This organization has infuriated some campaign insiders by taking an end run around lobbyists and campaign consultants and moving straight to the Democratic Party's rank and file members. The folks at MoveOn.org asked their members to write questions they'd like the candidates to answer. Then out of this humongous set of questions, members voted on their favorites, which were put to the candidates to answer. Because all nine contenders were given the opportunity to answer the same questions in roughly the same time frame, their answers are more readily comparable. Then MoveOn.org oh-so handily made candidates' responses available for everybody to review. A traditional analysis would examine the content of the candidates' answers. You know what I mean: what are the policy proposals being made, and what direction for the country do they imply? Well, heck, I trust you to figure that out for yourself. If you're in a literal mood, head over to MoveOn (or for a real eye-opener try Project Vote Smart), read the answers, educate yourself, and have a blast. But that's not what we're up to here. No, I want to look at the major contenders a smidgen askance, just for the fun of it. Instead of looking at the content of the candidates' explicit ideas, let's examine the form answers take. It may be that these sorts of differences uncover some essential but heretofore hidden distinctions between contenders. Or hey, maybe not. As the unbiased paragons of irrepressibly responsible journalism at Fox News say: I report, you decide, chum! (Hey, isn't chum a kind of bait? Never mind...) Quantitative Differences Some differences in form between the candidates can be accounted for numerically. Oh, how scientific -- I want to break out my slide rule! Unfortunately, I've never owned one, but you know what I mean. Anyway, here are some numerical distinctions you might find interesting: Wordiness: Some candidates clearly felt they had a lot more to say than others. Carol Moseley Braun's answers were briefest at a mere total of 613 words (Al Sharpton and Dick Gephardt were close to this minimum at 750 and 898 words respectively). On the other end of the spectrum, John Kerry and Dennis Kucinich were the eagerest of Democratic beavers, sharing 1849 and 1670 of their words with the rest of us. Some might say if you've got more to say, you've got more to say. Others might respond that conciseness is the essence of comprehensibility. Which is right? I'm not going there, girlfriend. I report, you decide, me hearty. Complexificationarity, or word length as the rest of us might say. How long was the typical word used by a candidate? Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton averaged over five letters per word, comparable to the verbosity of vocabulary used by President Bush in his weekly radio address, which he gets to read over and over and over again until he gets right. Dick Gephardt uses the shortest words, on average just 4.5 letters long. Not even Gephardt's relatively simple vocabulary, however, approaches the simplicity of George W. Bush's performances in his few press conferences, which consistently descends below Gephardt's level (when Bush manages to form actual words, that is -- ooh, nasty!). Self-Centeredness. I'm telling you, after I counted the number of times each candidate used the word "I," "I've," or "I'm", I ranked the candidates, and what I found I'm going to tell you now. Where was I? Ah, yes: clearly at the top of the heap of I-ness is Dennis Kucinich, who used one of these words forty-nine times in his answers. To put this in perspective, this works out to three out every hundred words being an "I" word. That's quite a bit more than other candidates (although John Kerry and Dick Gephardt were also higher than average "I"-ers). Dennis' I-I-I way of responding to a question is matched by the inclusion of his last name 12 times in his answers -- none of the other candidates mentioned their last or first names even once. At the other end of the spectrum lies Howard Dean, who used an I-word only a third as often as Kucinich (Al Sharpton was next lowest in Icentricity, with just 1.33% of his words being based in "I"). If you're writing a resume, "I" is good because it indicates action. Could it also be that Icentricity marks egocentricity? Hey: I report, you decide, bud! Or as a really bad college essay would say: "In the end, we can conclude only one thing: more research is needed." Typos. Most candidates had no spelling mistakes in their statements. An exception was Moseley Braun's, which contained three misspellings. Not coincidentally, Moseley Braun has the lowest intake of campaign contributions of any of the candidates so far. No staff, no spell-checking! What ever could it mean? I report, you decide! The Enemy Cometh, Or Don't Cometh As The Case May Be-eth. Who are the bogeymen of the Presidential campaigns, the real hot-button names? In these answers, they're John Ashcroft and George W. Bush himself. John Edwards mentioned John Ashcroft three times, but Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, Bob Graham and John Kerry all made multiple references too. John Edwards and Bob Graham used Bush's name the most often, at a whopping 11 times apiece. Is Dubya the Republican equivalent of Hillary Clinton for fund-raising purposes? I report, you...Oh, Goddamn it. I AM SO SICK OF THAT INANE SLOGAN! Excuse me. Damn Fox News. Damn the electric fence. Qualitative Differences Some patterns popped up that were interesting, even though they can't be quantified. For instance, Joseph Lieberman made a very interesting choice. Joseph Lieberman was the only contender who declined to answer rank-and-file Democrats' questions. I guess he's too busy being "electable." Well, whatever, Joseph, you do what you need to do... just don't be surprised if we're underwhelmed by your null presence. Another freak occurrence: John Edwards was the only candidate to make use of the word "hair" in his answers. Whatever could be on his mind? Finally, Al Sharpton was the only candidate to make use of religious language, using "The Lord," "religious," "spiritual," and "God" -- all in the same sentence. Well, he is a preacher, after all. Conclusion Hey, ridicule of Fox News aside, you really ought to decide what this means on your own. I meant it -- no summary here! Oh, OK then: in the wake of all of these answers provided by the political leaders of tomorrow and today, only one thing is for sure, and that is that nothing is for sure. Until the election is over, we will none of us know what the strongest implications of the candidates' approaches are yet to be fully appreciated. The End. See, you really didn't want a conclusion after all. Now go out and git that Bush. Git!

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