Last time, we looked at whether the Internet thought that Sarah Palin and Joe Biden were considered good or bad choices. This week, the completely unscientific and undoubtedly flawed investigation continues as we look at how things stand 25 days later.
(Disclaimer: This is just for fun. I'd have to think long and hard about how to do such a thing the proper way.)
Our basic approach is similar to that in the first round. We establish two baseline ratios, the "good decision" to "bad decision" ratio and the "good choice" to "bad choice" ratio, by searching for those phrases on Google and Google blog search. We find that the phrase "good decision" appears about 1.3 times more often than "bad decision" and "good choice" appears a stunning 7.3 times more often than "bad choice". It's a rather positive Internet out there.
Next we check to see how often Web pages and blog posts use the names of the VP candidates along with the phrases "good decision", "bad decision", "good choice" and "bad choice". To be a bit more careful than last time, we filter out results that mention the opposing candidate. So, for example, we'd count all the Web pages that say "Sarah Palin" and "good decision" but do not mention Joe Biden. We do this so that we can be a bit more confident about whom the post or page is about. Since I'm lazy, I'll just use Google.
Here are the results of the queries. Skip to the end for the summary stats.
Sarah Palin
Search Engine: Google.com
"sarah palin" AND "bad decision" -biden 7260
"sarah palin" AND "good decision" -biden 3960
Good-to-bad ratio 0.55
"bad decision" AND +palin -biden 39900
"good decision" AND +palin -biden 30000
Good-to-bad ratio 0.75
"sarah palin" AND "bad choice" -biden 13000
"sarah palin" AND "good choice" -biden 30200
Good-to-bad ratio 2.32
"bad choice" AND +palin -biden 97200
"good choice" AND +palin -biden 369000
Good-to-bad ratio 3.80
Search Engine: Google blog search (blogsearch.google.com)
"sarah palin" AND "bad decision" -biden 201
"sarah palin" AND "good decision" -biden 129
Good-to-bad ratio 0.64
"bad decision" AND +palin -biden 1221
"good decision" AND +palin -biden 371
Good-to-bad ratio 0.30
"sarah palin" AND "bad choice" -biden 224
"sarah palin" AND "good choice" -biden 1321
Good-to-bad ratio 5.90
"bad choice" AND +palin -biden 2090
"good choice" AND +palin -biden 4918
Good-to-bad ratio 2.35
Joe Biden
Search Engine: Google.com
"bad decision" AND "joe biden" AND -palin 4110
"good decision" AND "joe biden" AND -palin 586
Good-to-bad ratio 0.14
"bad decision" AND +biden AND -palin 4500
"good decision" AND +biden AND -palin 5690
Good-to-bad ratio 1.26
"bad choice" AND "joe biden" AND -palin 11600
"good choice" AND "joe biden" AND -palin 39600
Good-to-bad ratio 3.41
"bad choice" AND "biden" AND -palin 13900
"good choice" AND "biden" AND -palin 50800
Good-to-bad ratio 3.65
Search Engine: Google blog search (blogsearch.google.com)
"bad decision" AND "joe biden" AND -palin 40
"good decision" AND "joe biden" AND -palin 101
Good-to-bad ratio 2.53
"bad decision" AND +biden AND -palin 94
"good decision" AND +biden AND -palin 169
Good-to-bad ratio 1.80
"bad choice" AND "joe biden" AND -palin 276
"good choice" AND "joe biden" AND -palin 1278
Good-to-bad ratio 4.63
"bad choice" AND "biden" AND -palin 406
"good choice" AND "biden" AND -palin 2139
Good-to-bad ratio 5.27
Results
Competition I: "Good decision" to "bad decision" ratio
Palin's scores are: .55, .75, .64, .3 for an average of .56
Biden's scores are: .14, 1.26, 2.53, 1.8 for an average of 1.43
Competition II: "Good choice" to "bad choice" ratio
Palin's scores are: 2.32, 3.8, 5.9, 2.35 for an average of 3.59
Biden's scores are: 3.41, 3.65, 4.63, 5.27 for an average of 4.24
Biden edges out Palin in both competitions, which is the same result as last time.
It will be interesting to see how these figures will change as the election draws near. Also amusing will be the 20/20 hindsight that will emerge when the election is over.
