Academic

With all of the recent hoopla over the VP candidates’ speeches (especially Palin’s speech), it seemed appropriate to do the geeky pol sci thing and analyze their speeches. Rather than provide pundit reactions to the speeches or discuss my feelings about them, I decided to try something a bit more systematic. So, with the help of MSWord, I obtained the Flesch and Flesch-Kincaid scores for “reading ease” and “grade level” respectively. See here for more information on the construction of these scores. 

So, it appears that the VP candidates are speaking to the nation on the level of an 8th or 9th grade student. Palin wins the VP race with a 9.0 grade level speech over Biden with a 7.8 grade level speech. Or does she? What are we looking for in a speech? Is it better to have a higher score (grade level) or a lower one? From what I can discern from an admittedly rough search on the internet, most people read at about the 8th to 9th grade level or lower - therefore, candidates may be wise to pitch their speeches at about the level Biden and Palin are using.

 However, there are remaining questions. Is there an upper and lower bound? In other words, if we assume that it’s better to have a higher grade level speech, then does it follow that it’s better to have a Ph.D. level speech rather than a 12th grade speech? Or, if we assume that it’s better to have a lower grade level (”candidate of the people” or “straight talker”), then is it better to have a 4th grade speech over an 8th grade speech? Are the F-C grade scores really as relevant for spoken language as they are for written language? I’m guessing that most people taking in the speech are going to listen rather than read the transcript. 

Below the fold, I provide a table comparing Biden to Palin in a number of dimensions along with a comparison to Nixon and Kennedy in their 1960 acceptance speeches.

Clearly, Nixon and Kennedy’s speeches were geared to a higher level than the two VP candidates. Has the American populace “dumbed down” over time? Or, have the candidates come to decide that pitching it closer to the national mean F-C level equates with better communication?

Tomorrow I plan to update the table to include Obama and McCain.