State of the Union

A few weeks ago, after the State of the Union , I wrote a post about it. But recently, I saw this, a word cloud on the State of the Union Speeches. A word cloud is this: it takes all the words used in the speech, and gives a size to them based on the amount they are used. The biggest word was the most used word.

Here then, is the word cloud for Ronald Reagan's 1987 State of the Union Speech, his last.


Freedom really stands out, as does families. Soviet is big, because they hadn't yet collapsed, even though when he died, Reagan was given credit for their collapse.

Next we have Bill Clinton in 1997. The budget is balanced. The country is essentially in peaceful times, so Families are the most important. Freedom is small. Education is bigger. Welfare is interestingly large.


Jump another 10 years, and you get this:


Foreign policy dominates this word could. Iraq. Terrorists. And the complete lack of the word education. A tiny families. Freedom much smaller.

If you actually go back to the source, it's neat to see the words that come in and out of the State of the Union Speeches. I think that next year, Iran will be the biggest word.