2012 Vice Presidential Debate
Vice Presidential Debate Word Clouds: Readers on Joe Biden, Paul Ryan
We asked for your description of the candidates’ showing last night. In a word, yikes! By Sam Schlinkert.
Shortly after moderator Martha Raddatz thanked Joe Biden and Paul Ryan for participating in the 2012 vice-presidential debate, we asked our readers on Facebook what they thought— just as we did with the showdown between President Obama and Mitt Romney.
We compiled the one-word reactions into word clouds, in which words that were mentioned more often appear larger. The result offers a quick look at what our audience thought of Ryan and Biden.
Some 2,371 of you offered reactions to Biden’s performance. There was a pretty equal mix of positive and negative—”great” and “awesome” stand out, but the most repeated word was “rude,” with “disrespectful” and “condescending” making rather large appearances (perhaps it was his laughter).
Paul Ryan’s cloud, with 1,768 responses, is similarly negative. “Liar,” “pathetic,” and “malarkey” loom large— the last of which was actually one of Biden’s words from the debate. However “respectful” and the interesting “thirsty” also appeared frequently in the pool of responses.
Did you miss your chance to take part on Facebook? Try your hand at it in the comments and answer this question: What’s one word that sums up Paul Ryan’s performance, and one word that sums up Joe Biden’s?