Change is Coming, but Who is the ‘Change’ Candidate?

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

In a year where the sitting president has the lowest approval rating of any in history, it is no shock that each candidate wants to embrace change. But which one has convinced the press that he is the man who stands for change?

It would seem the Republican might have the harder road here, and that showed early on with Obama using the term frequently and the press picking up on it.

But that changed the week of September 1 when McCain passed Obama in mentions of the word. He’d made a concerted effort to take back the word as he exclaimed during his acceptance speech at the GOP convention: "Let me just offer an advance warning to the old big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second crowd: Change is coming. Change is coming."

This has been one of the mantras of his campaign during September, but perhaps it will not be possible for a Republican nominee to break free of Bush’s legacy as McCain’s September “change” charge seems to be wearing off. By the week of September 8 the candidates had equal share of the precious word and by the weeks of September 15 and 22, it seemed to be moving back to the Democrat.

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.

'Change' is Unchanged on Top of 'Hot-Button' Word List

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

In the Dow Jones Insight index of hot-button words, we see "change" again leading the pack in the period of June 11 to June 17, with 4,747 occurrences in the context of one or the other of the candidates (62% of those were alongside Obama). In second with about half as many mentions was "hope" (this time 60% of those were with Obama). "Experience" was a close third, with McCain getting 56% of those mentions. "Progress," a word McCain tried to use as a counter to "change," did not show forward movement and was fourth; the candidates split that one. The negative issues that were previous high-fliers continued to lag: "bitter," "divisive" and "elitist/elitism" all had scant mentions. And "electability," once an issue everyone focused on, was hardly mentioned last week.

Also of note: The Obama camp has been trying to attach McCain to President Bush whenever it can. While not a hot-button word per se, we are tracking that along with the others. There were only 205 mentions of that concept in seven days.

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 6,000 message boards.

Experience is Out, Change is In…

Dow Jones Insight Staff

On April 6, the Clinton campaign announced the demotion of its chief strategist, Mark Penn, over a conflict of interest in his role as private lobbyist for a free-trade deal that Clinton opposes. Prior to his departure, Penn had been the key proponent of the campaign’s strategy to emphasize Clinton’s experience, amid criticism from those who believed that such a focus was sharply at odds with an electorate clamoring for change.

We took a look at Clinton’s coverage in the mainstream media on the issues of “experience” and “change” over the past month to see if there is evidence of a shift in messaging from “during Penn” to “after Penn,” and it looks like there is.

With Penn at the helm from mid-March to early April, “experience” and “change” each had a 36% share of voice of the four tracked issues. But after his demotion, “change” increased to a 41% share, while “experience” dropped sharply to just 20%.

Methodology: “Close proximity” is defined as within about 50 words. Sources include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts.

'Change' is still in the air for Obama

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight staff

Each of the presidential campaigns works hard at branding its candidate. For some time now the concept of "change" has lead the charge as being the word most coveted -- at least by Democrats.

During the past 30 days, the word "change" was found in the context of Omaba 51,776 times to Clinton's 44,046 times.

Clinton is using "experience" to redirect people away from Obama's "change". Clinton has the lead, albeit by a thinner margin, with 31,407 mentions to Obama's 25,025.

The concept of "progess" has not really taken off for either candidate. It was mentioned only 2,527 times for Clinton to Obama's 2,448.

McCain had many fewer mentions, likely because the GOP race has been essentially over for a while, so he has gotten less coverage overall. Therefore, instead of comparing McCain to the Democrats we can look at the word that stuck to him the most. We see "change" here too, perhaps surprisingly, leading over "experience" with 19,818 mentions to 14,964. "Hope" was mentioned 9,810 times and "progress" a scant 1,698.

We might see "hope" increase a bit around McCain in the days going forward as he used the term multiple times in the speech he gave Tuesday night after gaining enough votes to secure the GOP nomination.

Methodology: The total number of documents analyzed equals 19,014 in the period Feb. 3 to March 3, 2008. The number of mentions exceeds the number of documents as many documents include more than one mention of a candidate's name. "Close proximity" is about 50 words from the candidate's name. Sources in this analysis include more than 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; more than 13,000 current-awareness news Web sites; 2 million of the most influential blogs; and more than 6,000 message boards.