What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the names President Barack Obama or Governor Mitt Romney? The new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll posed that question to registered voters and compiled their answers in “word clouds” — graphics in which larger words represent more frequent answers. The poll found 43% of voters came up with a negative phrase for Mitt Romney, including “out of touch,” “favors the rich” and “bad policies.” For the President, 52% of the words that respondents used were negative, like “Obamacare,” “economy” and “incompetent.”
These responses mirror the attack strategies of the candidates’ opponents. President Obama’s campaign hits Romney for supporting policies like tax cuts that help the wealthy, while cutting programs for the poor. Mitt Romney’s campaign criticizes the President for being in over his head, and simply not up to the job of fixing the economy.
The positive responses for each candidate reflect the parts of their resume or ideological stance they tend to tout the most. For Governor Romney, people said “businessman” and “conservative,” while for the President voters said “health reform” and “for the people.” Watch the panel’s analysis of the word clouds below:
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