The state of the State of the Union As elegant and precise as they can be, speeches are data, after all. A pair of interactive graphics posted to The Atlantic from Mitch Fraas and Northeastern assistant professor of history Benjamin Schmidt mapped both the areas of geographical focus of SOTUs through history and the language of the speeches themselves, the propensity of one […]
The Washington Examiner State of the Union 2023: Biden teases 2024 bid but doesn’t win over GOP The problem for Biden is that State of the Union addresses “rarely move the public opinion needle by very much,” particularly in such “a highly polarized political climate,” Northeastern University political science professor Costas Panagopoulos added.
What the new numbers on union membership say about the state of organized labor That may not seem as drastic as labor efforts throughout the year might have had us expect, but to Seth Harris, a Northeastern University professor who was a top labor advisor to President Joe Biden and Acting Labor Secretary under President Barack Obama, any growth is good news for the labor movement. “The union membership […]
Boston Herald Rep. to deliver State of the Union rebuttal “You don’t want to be a meme the next day. And you don’t want to have GIFs of you gulping water over and over again,” said Northeastern University professor Alan Schroeder, a reference to U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s awkward water break during the GOP’s 2013 official response.
Boston Herald Anticipating Obama’s last State of Union Alan Schroeder, professor of journalism at Northeastern University, joined Herald Radio’s “NewsFeed” show yesterday to preview President Obama’s last State of the Union address. Here are excerpts of what he had to say:
The State of the Union address in a single figure In the lead-up to last night’s State of the Union address, a number of computational analyses of past SOTU speeches appeared, examining word frequency over time or constructing new pseudo-speeches out of past ones. Even something as simple as a word count or word cloud can communicate important insights into the key ideas in a […]
State of the Union: Why childcare is a career issue Access to affordable childcare can have a big impact on workers, yet companies have largely stayed out of the debate, beyond offering programs for workers to put away pre-tax dollars to spend on childcare. Seven percent of U.S. employers offer on-site daycare, while 2% provide vouchers or subsidies, according to a recent report . Jamie […]
Obama vs. his predecessors in State of the Union’s focus on colleges: An interactive tool President Obama said the words “college” or “colleges” 12 times in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, which seems like a relatively high figure for a speech—and a nation—full of issues. How does Mr. Obama’s focus on higher education in the address compare to that of other presidents? The work of Benjamin M. Schmidt, […]
State of the Union: Political Experts Predict The Usual, Plus One Possible Presidential Curveball “I think we will see him get aggressive on gun control…maybe the economy, too, but not in a way that is particularly polarizing,” said Greg Goodale, Associate Professor in Communication Studies at Northeastern University. “He is a conscious president. You get the anger and sorrow about gun control, but you don’t get that on other […]
Puerto Rico governor to take statehood case to Washington but faces US snub The likelihood that the US Congress will want to take on Puerto Rico as a fully-fledged state of the union at the time of such financial meltdown is seen by most observers as slight to none. On top of that comes the nature of Puerto Rico linguistically, culturally and racially in terms of its integration […]
Boston Herald Great Britain votes to leave European Union Observers were predicting dire consequences for the European Union itself, as well as Britain and the United States. “It will weaken the EU,” said Alan Clayton-Matthews, an economist at Northeastern University. “Britain is a major economy. … This will be a blow to the EU. The major blow is, with other European countries, if Britain […]
Salon When Texas fell to the wingnuts: The secret history of the Southern strategy, modern conservatism and the Lone Star State From the vantage point of most Dallas Republicans in early 1963, Barry Goldwater represented the brightest hope for national conservative Republicanism since the death of Robert Taft in 1953. Annoyance with the New Deal, particularly the National Industrial Recovery Act’s wage and price controls, which interfered with the management of his family’s department store, led […]