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The VP debate: Candidates, questions, and queries
October 6, 2008
If information is the currency of democracy, as Thomas Jefferson allegedly said, then during last Thursday's vice-presidential debate between Senator Biden and Governor Palin a lot of people used
Google Search
to get a bit wealthier, metaphorically speaking. Using
Google Hot Trends
, we can see some of the more interesting things that people were researching, and you can do the same to follow along yourself during tomorrow night's second presidential debate (9 PM ET). But first, here's what people were curious about during the
VP match
.
Many people were simply interested in understanding the meaning of particular terms. Governor Palin called Senator McCain a "maverick" several times, sending many viewers to Google to query
definition of maverick
,
what is a maverick
, and
define:maverick
.
As the debaters spoke, voters queried for more information.
When Biden mentioned that the "theocracy controls the security apparatus" in Iran, users searched for the
meaning of theocracy
— as they did when he spoke of the
windfall profits tax
.
Getting these definitions got a bit tougher when the candidates couldn't even agree on pronunciation. Discussion about a certain type of energy caused a flurry of queries:
nucular vs nuclear
,
nuclear pronunciation
,
palin nucular
, and even
nukular
. And when Senator Biden talked about the "7,000
madrasses
built along [the Pakistani-Afghan] border", the queries ranged from
madrass
,
madrases
,
madrasa
, and even
madras
, a major city in India that's most definitely not on the Pakistani-Afghan border.
Governor Palin's claim that "Israel is in jeopardy of course when we're dealing with Ahmadinejad as a leader of Iran" led viewers to try to learn more about this leader even if they could not spell his name. They searched for [Achmadinijad], [Akmadinijad], [Akmadinajad], and the correct
Ahmadinejad
. Some did not even try, instead looking for [president Iran] and [Iran leader]. The Governor also referred to
General McKiernan
, the U.S. military leader in Afghanistan, as "McClellan", sending viewers in search of
McClellan
,
general in Afghanistan
,
General McClellan Afghanistan
, and
general Afghanistan surge
. Some searchers eventually did find the correct general, but not that many.
Historical references abounded. When Senator Biden claimed "This is the most important election you will ever, ever have voted in, any of you, since 1932", some people wanted to know what it was about the
1932 presidential campaign
between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt that was so special. And twice as many them wanted to know about that "
shining city on a hill
", a phrase from
Ronald Reagan's farewell address
that was originally coined in 1630
by John Winthrop
.
When Senator Biden offered a civics lesson ("Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch") many people checked, and learned that
Article I of the Constitution
describes the legislative branch of the U.S. government. The executive branch is described in
Article II
. Others just searched directly for the
role of vice president
and
vice president duties
.
People searched on
clean coal
and took a look at Senator Biden's position (as the candidate asked them to) with queries like
Biden clean coal
.
These are some of the more interesting queries, but which were the most popular ones? Among the candidates, Senator Biden was a big winner. Searches on him soared more than 70-fold, compared to a week earlier. Governor Palin, much more of a search favorite in the weeks leading up to the debate, only saw a 6x jump, but her volume outpaced Senator Biden's.
Searches for the VP candidates peaked near the debate's end
.
Beyond names, two search terms which triggered the most searches were [nuclear] (a 130x spike compared to a week earlier) and [maverick] (70x). [
Register to vote
] was also quite popular; we even have a
special site
for that.
The
Commission on Presidential Debates
, which hosts the debates, has stated its objective as providing "the best possible information to viewers and listeners". From Google's perspective — the little search box on viewers' and listeners' computers and mobile phones — the vice presidential debate did a pretty darn good job.
We'll give you an update on tomorrow night's debate later this week. In the meantime, keep an eye on the most recent queries yourself on
Google Hot Trends
; they change frequently and will start to reflect the debate's talking points soon after it finishes.
Posted by Jeffrey D. Oldham, Software Engineer; Fred Leach, Customer Labs Analyst; and Betsy Masiello, Economics Analyst
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