During the Republican National Convention this past week, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign worked hard to put distance between the senator and President Bush. Bush spoke briefly via satellite and Vice President Cheney didn’t address the crowd at all.
Despite these attempts, what was most evident during the convention was how similar the two men’s policies were. New ideas to address the country’s problems and actual policy discussions were given little attention. As FiveThirtyEight notes, instead, much attention was given to “the three P’s — Palin, Petroleum, and POW.”
ThinkProgress has put together an analysis based on the prepared remarks (a total of 40,752 words) of the convention speakers, looking at how many times Republicans said various words. A glimpse at conservatives’ priorities:
| Bush Administration Bush: 1 Cheney: 0 Gonzales: 0 Rumsfeld: 0 National Security Economy Other |
Health Care Health Care: 32 Medicare: 1 Medicaid: 1 Environment/Energy Science Civil Rights |
The New York Times has an analysis of the Democratic convention here.
UPDATE 9/8: This count has been updated to fully reflect non-prime-time speakers.
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