Obama sought to increase pressure for congressional leaders to reach a deal that would allow the government to continue borrowing money to pay its debts after August 2.
“The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government,” Obama said. “So I’m asking you all to make your voice heard. If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your member of Congress know. If you believe we can solve this problem through compromise, send that message.”
We used Social Radar to analyze conversations on blogs and social media outlets.
‘Compromise’ mentions
The word ‘compromise’ was mentioned 410% more often than average online immediately following President Obama’s speech.
‘Compromise’ conversation topics
Nearly every topic of conversation around the word ‘compromise’ is currently related to the debt ceiling discussion. The word ‘Republicans’ appears in 16% of compromise conversations and is 70% negative.
Content distribution
Nearly 70% of ‘compromise’ conversations came via microblogs such as Twitter, while 17% came via blogs.
The Democratic-led Senate and Republican-led House are barreling toward a showdown on competing plans to cut spending and raise the debt limit as a resolution to the intensifying crisis just one week before a possible federal default. Obama referred to the Republicans’ plan as ‘cuts-only’ and the Democrats’ plan as a ‘balanced approached.’ We measured sentiment online around Democrats and Republicans.
Democrat sentiment
Conversations around Democrats are currently 54% negative.
Republican sentiment
Conversations around Republicans are currently 60% negative.
The two sides seem farther apart than ever. Monday’s day of legislative chess moves, back-to-back party caucuses and closed-door meetings ended with a nationally televised Presidential address and a rebuttal by the House speaker, John Boehner. We measured sentiment around President Obama compared to John Boehner.
President Obama sentiment
Conversations around President Obama are currently 55% negative.
Boehner sentiment
Conversations around John Boehner are currently 68% negative.
Based on initial conversations online around Democrats, Republicans, Obama and Boehner, it appears that the public is siding in favor of the Democrats’ plan for a balanced compromise approach.
New York Republican and potential Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told President Obama “You’re fired” on Saturday during a Tea Party rally in Florida. Is Trump a serious candidate? How do the American people feel?
We used Social Radar to compare buzz and sentiment around both Trump and President Obama.
Trump vs. Obama buzz
Over the past year, President Obama generated significantly more buzz than Donald Trump. However, within the past month Trump is trending up 59% and Obama is trending 8% downward.
Donald Trump sentiment
Conversations around Donald Trump are currently 54% positive.
Obama sentiment
Conversations around President Obama are currently 43% positive.
The word ‘president’ is currently appearing in 24% of conversations around Trump, and those mentions are around 50% positive.
President Obama laid out his plans to cut the deficit by $4 trillion over 12 years on Wednesday, saying that it was necessary to use a scalpel instead of a machete to cut costs and that both parties need to come together to do so by the end of June. Joe Biden fell asleep.
Budget sentiment
Conversations around the budget are up 327% but are currently at their most negative point of the month, 73%. Nearly every topic of conversation surrounding the budget is currently red (negative).
President Obama said Monday that the military operations in Libya have succeeded in averting a humanitarian catastrophe, and pledged that the United States would continue to scale back its involvement in the conflict over the coming days.
The president said the United States was compelled to act, in concert with other nations, once it was faced with a “brutal repression and a looming humanitarian crisis” brought on by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the leader of Libya and a man Mr. Obama called “a tyrant.”
We used Social Radar to gauge the public’s opinion on the situation.
Libya sentiment
Conversations around Libya have been an average of 58% negative over the last month, however trending positive, especially after the President’s address Monday.
Obama sentiment
Interestingly, sentiment around President Obama is at its most negative point this month.
Key topics of conversation around Obama
The majority of conversation topics around Obama have been negative recently.
In a surprise twist to a long-running saga, the Air Force said Thursday that it would award a $35 billion contract for aerial fueling tankers to Boeing rather than to a European company. William J. Lynn III, the deputy defense secretary, said Boeing was “the clear winner” under a formula that considered the bid prices, how well each of the planes met war-fighting needs and what it would cost to operate them over 40 years.
Boeing chatter
Online chatter around Boeing jumped 5.2x Thursday following the announcement.
The White House called last night’s State of the Union address by President Barack Obama the “most interactive ever.” During the speech, the White House posted charts and other information in a special section on www.whitehouse.gov. In addition, the White House lined up a series of officials to take questions via Twitter using the hashtag #sotu, Facebook, and the White House website.
We used Social Radar to analyze chatter around last night’s SOTU.
SOTU chatter 2010 vs. 2011
Overall chatter around the 2011 State of the Union address was actually down 20% YOY compared to 2010.
President Obama chatter January 2011
Conversations around President Obama more than tripled yesterday following the speech. Nearly 1 out of every 200 posts online yesterday were about Obama.
Conversation sentiment around Obama and SOTU 2011
Online conversations mentioning Obama and the SOTU were 63% positive.
Obama and SOTU 2011 conversation topic cloud
The most negatively discussed words were ‘spending’ and ‘deficit.’
Words mentioned during SOTU conversations online
We analyzed words mentioned during SOTU conversations online. The word ‘jobs’ appears in nearly 6% of SOTU conversations online.
This week we discuss the Google Chrome OS Notebook (CR-48), Spotify’s US delay, London riots around the increased tuition fees, Wikileaks arrest and hacker attack, and have an unnecessary rant about something positive: Mark Zuckerberg donating his wealth to charity.
George W. Bush is back in the spotlight this week, doing press around the release of his memoir The Decider Decades. The book is an autobiography focused around “the most consequential decisions” of his presidency and his personal life.
As the New York Times put it, there was something jarring, fascinating and disarming about seeing George W. Bush on screen again during an hourlong NBC special interview with Matt Lauer on Monday. Two years ago he left office with two wars raging, an economy in free fall, and the lowest approval ratings of any modern president.
Chatter around George W. Bush is 65% negative this week.
One of the biggest topics of conversation around George W. Bush this week was Kanye West.
Bush told Matt Lauer during the interview Monday that the “most disgusting moment” of his presidency came when rap star Kanye West claimed that the president didn’t care about black people in response to the hurricane Katrina crisis.
Kanye attempted to respond and empathize to the former President’s comments on the Today Show, but claimed via Twitter that NBC ambushed him with video footage and prompted an emotional response.
Sentiment around Mr. West, who has a new CD coming out this month, is currently 60% positive.
This week is our best episode ever. We’ve shortened our format and made it a lot more interesting. Even if you’ve watched episodes in the past, you have to watch this one!
As usual, we’re discussing the week’s most popular news stories and the social media buzz around them. This week we discuss the 2010 Elections, Willow Smith’s Whip My Hair, Rally to Restore Sanity hosted by Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, and the Harry Reid vs Sharron Angle election. We also do a great One Minute Debate.
As a bonus, you’ll see our very own Ben Hagedorn running around as the most terrible Batman ever.
Also, provide feedback! We want your opinions so we can improve our show.
As the economic and employment recovery continues to be slow, the Federal Reserve announced that the central bank will buy $600 billion in long-term Treasuries over the next eight months — a policy known as quantitative easing.
This second round of monetary stimulus, dubbed QE2, is the government’s attempt to encourage spending by making it cheaper to borrow money. Critics believe too much stimulus could lead to excessive inflation that could endanger economic stability over the long term.
We used Social Radar to run analysis on Fed chair Ben Bernanke and QE2 over the past two days. Conversations around both Bernanke and QE2 are both overwhelmingly negative.
Topics of conversation in red below represent negative chatter.
The word ‘risk’ is appearing in an astounding 30% of posts on these topics.
Will this round of stimulus help after the previous $2 trillion in similar purchases have not jolted spending?
