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Blah blah blah word clouds.

I should note that while Richter and Wolf have platforms in the 450-500 word range, Phillips’ platform weighs in at 1,650 words.  The length of text influences word clouds fairly heavily – in particular, words that would otherwise be prominent are more likely to fade.  Also, Richter has been updating her platform throughout the campaign, I used the latest version.

• You see campus, campuses, and Sexton in Phillips’; she also mentions Carleton and the not-yet-present agricultural college in the full platform.  Sexton and campus appear for Wolf.  Richter mentions none of the other campuses which is mildly surprising given the position.
• Communication and community appear for both Richter and Wolf.  Communication appears for Phillips but not as prevalent as you might expect given the role of the VP Internal.  That said, if you check the platform you see she uses the word briefly and then goes on for 300 words or so, so this appears to be nothing more than an illustration of the shortcomings of using word clouds alone.
• All three show a healthy mix of action words and relevant keywords
• If you are wondering why well shows up so much for Wolf, it’s because of the very regrettable overuse of “As well”.
• Really, none of these are interesting as former candidate Hutton’s word cloud; the top words included “possible president  food activism  union actions”.

Phillips

Richter

Wolf

Some more investigative journalism that counts.

I possess all the ingenuity of a wharf crane, so please excuse me while I once again trot out these tired old visualizations.  A brief description and a few caveats have been covered before, so I’ll spare you that much at least.

• Sykes is a Comp Sci student, so you should know he’s 10 points ahead right out of the gate in my books.  Not only because of Faculty loyalty: his experience and blog and Q&A pages all tell me he’s a person who gets shit done.  He has all the hallmarks of a type of person I am familiar with, a type who can move from thought to execution almost automatically.  His platform is perhaps the most straightforward of the three: here’s the stuff I’m going to do, plus a bit tacked on at the end about sustainability which he may have thought was just a basic requirement.  The word cloud makes the same suggestion: the top verb is “ensure“.  (compare to “want” for both Hallink and Jardine)  The top nouns are “Events” and “Programming“, which is the stuff he’ll ensure (compare to “year” for both Hallink and Jardine).
• Sykes list-driven platform means words not normally common show up: i.e., etc.  (If we pardon him for joining most of the rest of the world and not italicizing them, i.e. is even used correctly once.)
• I was amused to see “programming” show up so frequently in the platform of a C.S. student, albeit in an entirely different context.
• Hallink is the only one where you see Sexton in the word cloud, and in fact is the only one of the three to use it at all.  Sykes mentions the T-Room and of course starts out with a minor amount of Sexton credibility for being a CS student.  Jardine mentions neither.
• Hallink and Jardine both have “week” as a top word, mostly due to O-Week (oddly Hallink continues to call it Frosh week).  Sykes doesn’t mention this very important week at all, though.
• Jardine and Sykes talk about the Grawood; Hallink avoids the word entirely.
• Sykes and Hallink talk about residence; Jardine doesn’t even mention it.
• Jardine is the only one where province comes up, and it’s in reference to what I think is a really interesting set of ideas, ones that Tourism Nova Scotia should fund in their entirety.
• Hallink has a monopoly on discussions of university athletics.
• There’s more in there; take a few minutes to play Find Your Own Context-Free Generalization!

Hallink

Jardine

Sykes

CKDU managed to interview almost every candidate and referendum spokesperson.  The results are posted on their website.  Very impressive.

Politicians these days, they’re just so tech savy!

I mean, just look at Obama. He even has a Tumblr blog! Now what President has a Tumblr Blog? Aside from Obama I mean.

So how are our candidates doing with the technology?

Depends on who you look at. Now, not everyone has added me to their group pages, or what have you, on Facebook because I simply don’t personally know all the candidates. However, I was extremely impressed with Gavin following me on Twitter. I think he’s the only candidate to do so thus far. (And this is my first post on Punditry!)

While most group pages, (I did my homework, i.e. went on Facebook for a solid ten minutes before remembering I was writing an article), were made as soon as the campaigning began by the Candidates, while some chose not to do that.

For instance, Jon Magill, going for re-election  of a position on Senate, created a page. Not a group. I think this is an interesting tactic personally. Problem with this, once you like it, it tends to disappear off your “dash” on Facebook. So far he has 36 people who have ‘liked it’. Great photo of him on that page by the way. Very bad ass.

Jamie Aaron on the other hand, going for Pres as we all know, had a stumble. He created an event page, but  according to Campaign Rules, which can be found here, http://www.dsuelections.ca/campaign-rules.html, it’s not technically allowed. (Though it’s not not allowed either if you catch my drift here). So he changed tactics and created a page.

I don’t know to much about the other Candidates, and have yet to do my homework in this area, but I’m curious to know, is it effective? I don’t really think Jon’s page is effective in any means, and I feel like Jamie’s event page might have been a bit better in some regards. It might have actually gotten more students out to vote because it said the event was from such and such time to such and such day. (See I can’t even remember the day we go to vote! 14th-16th).  However, it’s hard to say.

I don’t know if Twitter is a good use of promoting yourself. It’s hard to say, and it’s hard to say how many people who have Twitter are like me and have a list of political pundits, politician’s and news sites which they follow on top of school related twitter pages.

Although it clearly says in the rules that only one website per candidate is allowed, I would have been interested to see a blog page on the Candidates website, or a blog type segment of the website at least, on the website. So that perhaps we could get a look into their personal world. How their day might going. Some things they’re having trouble with. I realize that Twitter could be used in this way, but I find there is only so much you can say in 140 is it? characters.

If there is any way to engage the student it’s of course through Facebook, cause let’s face it, who doesn’t go on Facebook when they’re trying to avoid school work. But does it do much for voter turnout? Does it help the Candidates? Could Candidates use it to their advantage in gaining support? Personally I think Facebook is just that, a Face. You can’t put a personality to the Candidate and you can’t get to know them very well through Facebook. Your friend just added you to a group because they think it’s cool. So I think in some ways it just gives Candidates an in, but really they gotta do the legwork.

But, let’s face it, if those leg’s aren’t made of steel, then you’re going to be in a lot of pain my friend. A lot of pain indeed.

‘Till next post.

(Edit: Sarah Bouchard has pointed out to me, via twitter, she has actually been following me for months! She was ahead of the game before the game even started! My apologies!)

Time is short, as I must be at work in mere minutes, but I felt it my public duty to warn you all of a grave danger in our midst. Sarah Bouchard has gone mad with power. There is no time to explain–you wouldn’t believe me if I told you anyway. Watch the video and see it with your own eyes.

Just listen to that soulless laugh in the background. Simply chilling. The last I heard, Bouchard and her monstrosity were on their way to the debate. If you are already on Sexton by the time you read this, may God have mercy on your soul.

The Sexton Debate kicks off at noon in the Alumni Lounge (in front of Tim Horton’s). Obviously we’ll be there, check here for the liveblog.

And that’s a wrap. Thanks for watching, everyone!