If Money Talks, Which Candidate Speaks Loudest?

Dow Jones Insight Staff

With Barack Obama’s announcement this week that he had raised a record $66 million in August and lined up more than 500,000 first-time donors, we looked at how the four candidates compared recently on the issue of fundraising.

Obama, by far the leader in donations from the public, also leads the way in terms of media coverage on the topic, though not by much. There were 1,740 mentions of his name in close proximity to fundraising-related terms in the previous seven days, or 36% of the total 4,826 fundraising mentions of the four candidates over that period. Because Obama declined to take public funds to finance his campaign on the assumption that he could raise far more on his own and spend it as he wished, fundraising events will continue to be a central activity for the Democratic nominee going forward. And with Obama as the far more galvanizing half of the ticket, his running mate, Joe Biden, has not played a very public fundraising role, netting just 279 mentions related to the issue, or 6% of the total.

On the Republican side, McCain, who has accepted public financing and is therefore limited in how much he can raise and how he can spend it, is expected to spend far less time drumming up donations, leaving much of that role to his running mate. Nonetheless, in the previous week McCain drew 1,665 mentions in reference to fundraising, or 35% of all fundraising mentions, as the media compared the state of McCain’s coffers with Obama’s. Palin, meanwhile, received 1,142 mentions on the issue, or 24%, as she took on a major fundraising role for the McCain campaign, with the goal of appealing to the conservative base and enabling McCain to focus on the issues.



Methodology: All charts and figures above reflect mentions of the candidates in both mainstream and social media sources. Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

Fuel Prices, Jobs Cuts and Housing Slumps – Oh, My

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

With the current state of the economy a hot topic, we have begun tracking several new issues that are playing key roles in the overall economic picture – namely fuel prices, the housing market and the jobs situation. Considering the direness of the discussion around these topics in some corners of the media, it appears that on the whole, the press and bloggers are talking about them in relation to the candidates somewhat less than we’d have expected. As always, this may or may not be a reflection of where the candidates want to take the conversation, but it shows the amount of attention the media and bloggers are giving the issues as they cover the candidates.

Of the 24 key domestic and international issues currently tracked by Dow Jones Insight, only one of the new topics – fuel prices – cracked the top 10. The issue was mentioned in the context of either candidate 27,443 times in all tracked sources (mainstream and social media) during the period June 20 – July 20, making it the eighth-most-discussed issue. The topic of jobs was referenced 22,335 times, ranking it 11th, while the state of the housing market came up a surprisingly low 5,578 times, putting it way down the list in the 21st spot. The issue of the economy as a whole, however, rose to the top spot among all issues, potentially offering some proof that politicians prefer to talk in generalities rather than offer specific plans.

We will update this table regularly to provide an at-a-glance view of how coverage of the issues fluctuates over the course of the campaign.

Methodology: Mainstream press sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts and more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites. Social media sources include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 60,000 message boards.

Campaign-Finance Decisions Causing Trouble for Both Candidates

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

Obama is enjoying a tremendous lead in money raised to support his campaign, but he also seems to be winning the battle for favorable coverage on the issue of fundraising itself, which took a rather contentious turn last week.

Obama announced June 19 that he would not take public financing for the general election, a decision that means he is free to spend the record-breaking several hundred million dollars he’s raised thus far. The McCain camp says that announcement is a reversal of a pledge he’d made earlier in the campaign. McCain, meanwhile, has raised far less overall and plans to accept public financing.

Obama has received quite a bit of bad press over the announcement and has been labeled a flip-flopper by some. But it appears that the discussion of McCain’s resulting financing disadvantage, plus some finger-pointing at McCain by the Obama team as it defended the decision, has ultimately outweighed the flip-flopper criticism and produced more negative language in association with McCain than with Obama. Obama said his campaign would need the additional funds in expectation of future anti-Obama ads that would need to be rebutted and noted that McCain himself, a well-known campaign-finance reformer, was still taking money from lobbyists and PACs.

For the five days after Obama’s announcement (June 19-23), Dow Jones Insight identified 1,118 press documents mentioning Obama and/or McCain in proximity to terms related to campaign finance, and the automated favorability-analysis feature found 538 of these documents to contain either favorable or unfavorable language dominating in reference to the candidate and issue.

Looking only at this non-neutral coverage, we found that Obama was discussed unfavorably on the topic of fundraising in 249 separate articles, or 86% of his total non-neutral coverage, while just 42 articles, or 14%, discussed Obama and financing using favorable language. But McCain fared worse, as 222 articles, or 90% of his non-neutral coverage, was unfavorable, and just 25 documents, or 10%, were favorable.

Methodology: Favorability analysis is of English-language documents only and was generated by software-based analysis which has been shown to be 80% accurate in similar corpora. Favorable and unfavorable ratings are assigned based on the words found in close proximity to a candidate's name. All neutral documents were excluded. The remaining 538 documents are those with discernible favorability. The source set excludes social media and press releases and includes global English-language newspapers, magazines, broadcast transcripts and newswires.

Obama’s Strengths? Faith and Fundraising

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

As the election officially became a two-man race after Hillary Clinton withdrew her candidacy over the weekend, the two nominees continued turning their attention more pointedly toward one another – and the issues they believe will help them win in November. Based on data from the tracked social media in the past eight days, their efforts have resonated clearly on certain issues.

Obama dominated even more than usual on the issue of faith over the past eight days, with 2,423 mentions of his name occurring in close proximity* to faith-related terms, representing some 40% of his total issues-related coverage, compared to McCain’s 953 mentions, or 23% of his issues coverage.

A number of events drove the chatter, including Obama’s announcement that he and his family had cut ties with their Chicago church and his condemnation of a visiting priest’s sermon mocking Clinton, as well as efforts to court the Jewish vote with a speech to a pro-Israel group in which he outlined his proposed strategy for the Middle East, which includes being, as the now pro-Obama Clinton put it, “a good friend to Israel.”

On the issue of fundraising, Obama exceeded McCain in mentions by almost as much as he has in actual funds raised after he announced a ban on lobbyist and PAC donations to the Democratic National Committee, as part of his effort to portray McCain as beholden to special interests due to his ties with lobbyists. Obama received 814 mentions on the topic of fundraising, or about 14% of his overall issues coverage, compared with 399 mentions, or just 10%, for McCain. However, more isn’t always better, as the conviction of a one-time Obama fundraiser for fraud and money-laundering also helped boost his lead on the issue.

McCain held clear leads on the blogs and boards in terms of taxes and the economy, with both driven in part by his efforts to distance himself from the Bush economic policies while the Obama team continues to link them. McCain’s continued support for a gas-tax holiday for the summer also received coverage.

On the economy, McCain was mentioned 815 times on the blogs and boards during the tracked period, or 20% of his total coverage on all issues, compared to 558 mentions, or 9%, for Obama. On the tax issue, McCain saw 553 mentions, or 7% of his total issues coverage, while Obama received 439 mentions, or 7%.

*Close proximity is within about 50 words.

Methodology: Sources analyzed include 2 million of the most influential blogs and more than 6,000 message boards. Issues shown are the 10 most active domestic issues for the two candidates over the analyzed period. Percentages are based on the total number of mentions for those 10 issues.