What the Candidates' (Websites) Are Talking About

Blogger Rob Goodspeed has produced this interesting graph showing what issues each candidate's website focuses on, and how many words it allots to each topic.

Word counts on websites, of course, don't necessarily measure the exact importance of each issue to a candidate. Rob's graph, moreover, counts only the number of words on the "outermost" of each issue page; content of pages linked to from this outer page is not counted. Thus, the fact that Senator Clinton's green bars are shorter in almost every category does not mean that she cares about issues less, only that her website is designed more economically. Many words about an issue do not a strong commitment make. Yet the differences in categories like "Standing in the World," "National Security," and "Technology" are nonetheless striking.

Most importantly, though, we must remember that, as Rob reminds us, "what candidates say about their priorities, and what they actually do in office can be quite different for a variety of reasons."

(Hat tip: Matt Yglesias)