I don't know about you, but I'm B-O-R-E-D of American election hype. In fact, I'm bored of election hype full stop, but this fun tool, the Debate Spotter has made it a little more interesting...
It's interesting to see that during the first presidential debate Lehrer mixed it up a little with 30 seconds here and 90 seconds there - who could condense their pre-prepared material better in the shorter time? Whose material was very obviously pre-prepared and whose was more fluid and flowing?
The critics say that Kerry "won" that debate (I wonder if they were using Debate Spotter?) and it's pretty obvious from his rhetoric, he repeats himself less often and finds new ways to phrase things in a single section - type in "admire" to see what I mean. That's not to say he doesn't repeat himself: he uses key phrases over and over and it's this rhetoric that sticks in the listener/watcher/reader's mind. Try "strong alliances". He uses it four times to Bush's one. If you shorten the phrase to the word "alliance" alone, Kerry is way out ahead with a seven to three ratio.
Obviously the "election" is pretty high in Bush's list of priorities, but Kerry seems to outflank him with sheer force of numbers: the Kerry to Bush ratio for "war" 46 to Bush's 27 and "weapons" 19 to 11.
Fascinating stuff...!