ABNORMAL NORMALIZATION: A significant change in this year's rankings is that the calculated partisanship indices have been modified to attempt to account for the disparity in party references. The gory mathematical details can be found on the Methods page.
The basic idea is this: because of political circumstances (control of the White House, Congress, etc.), references to one party may dominate for extended periods. This generally leads to lower scores for pundits of the dominant party and higher scores for pundits of the opposition party, because columnists tend to be more strongly unfavorable toward the other party than they are favorable toward their own. I think it's impossible to completely correct for this effect, but normalizing by proportionally "devaluing" the references to the dominant party should help.
Over the past two years there have naturally been more references to the ruling Republicans than to Democrats. Applying the normalization would have added a few points to many of the Republican pundits and subtracted a few from many of the Democratic pundits. I need to recalculate past years to illustrate this -- I think that the largest effect would be to dramatically reduce the partisanship score of someone like Frank Rich, who was quite negative toward his own party. The scores of heavy hitters like Ann Coulter and Paul Krugman would not have changed much because they have been fairly "symmetric" (nearly as positive toward their own party as negative toward the other).
The twist is that so far this year the balance has shifted so that there have only been 65 Republican references for every 100 Democratic references. That adds a few points to Krugman (because he has criticized Joe Lieberman and John Kerry) and Scheer and subtracts a few from Krauthammer and Charen. I think that it's only a temporary effect because of the intense focus on the competitive Democratic presidential primaries. Once that settles down, Democratic references should fall back to Republican levels or less.
| Author/ Affiliation |
Title/ Date |
words | PI | Partisan References |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E. J. Dionne Jr. Washington Post |
Two Americas, One Deficit 6 February 2004 |
942 | 100 | 3D+,21R- Perhaps the: Bush administration This is: administration, White House, President Bush The president's: The president It misleadingly: the president, administration The bland: The president, Bush On Page: the president From those: Bush, administration Now turn: Bush Bush is: Bush If the: Bush, administration, administration Another amazing: administration Bush's rule: Bush Imagine you: Bush Democratic presidential: Democratic, John Edwards, Bush, Edwards |
| OJ On the Editorial Page WSJ OpinionJournal |
WMD Breakthrough 6 February 2004 |
997 | 100 | 2D-,4R+ And in: President Bush These WMD: Bush, Clinton All of: Clinton Administration All of: Bush, Bush |
| NYT Lead Editorial New York Times |
The Administration’s Scramble 6 February 2004 |
939 | 83 | 15R-,3R= The Administration's: Administration President Bush: President Bush, the president, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Bush, President Bush The saddest: Powell, Powell, White House, The President, Powell, White House Mr. Rumsfeld,: Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld Finally, Mr.: Bush, the president |
| Paul Krugman New York Times |
Get Me Rewrite! 6 February 2004 |
875 | 79 | 11R-,3R= Right now: Bush administration Let's start: administration A tip: Bush, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney Can all: President Bush And if: Bush, Pat Roberts Now let's: administration The fiscal: administration The trouble: administration, administration I'd like: administration |
| Michael Kinsley Washington Post |
Grand Old Pragmatism 6 February 2004 |
1184 | 42 | 2D+,19D-,4D=,1R+,3R-,7R= Democrats are: Democrats, Republicans, Republicans, Bush Nevertheless, Democrats: Democrats, Republican, Democratic, Lieberman, Dennis Kucinich, Democrat, Joe Lieberman Then the: Democrats, Democrat, Al Sharpton Some Democrats: Democrats, Howard Dean, Democrats, John Kerry, John Kerry So it's: Democrats, John Edwards, Edwards, Democrat And Edwards: Edwards, Wesley Clark, Kerry, Bush As each: Bush If political: Republican, Republicans, Republican, Republicans The process: Democrats Something similar: Democratic, Democrats, Republicans |
| WP Lead Editorial Washington Post |
Giving Pakistan a Pass 6 February 2004 |
674 | 40 | 2R-,3R= Such belligerence: Bush administration President Bush: President Bush, administration The administration's: administration, Bush |
| Mona Charen Creators Syndicate |
Will anything change? 6 February 2004 |
787 | 33 | 1D-,2D= All of: Democrats There are: Joseph Lieberman, Tipper Gore |
| Charles Krauthammer Washington Post |
After Sept. 11, It's Veterans Day 6 February 2004 |
966 | 16 | 7D+,3D-,5D=,2R+,1R-,1R= With John: John Kerry, Democrats True, President: President Bush, Kerry This is: Kerry Kerry is: Kerry, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Kerry However much: Democrats For 21/2: George W. Bush, Bush, Kerry It is: Bill Clinton, Bob Dole There is: FDR, Wesley Clark Kerry makes: Kerry, Democrats |
| David Ignatius Inactive |
Missed Signals On WMD? 6 February 2004 |
864 | |
|
| Richard Cohen Washington Post |
Trivial Pursuits 6 February 2004 |
874 | 0 | |
| Thomas Sowell Creators Syndicate |
Housing hurdles: Part II 6 February 2004 |
725 | 0 | |
| Bob Herbert Inactive |
Tuning Out the G.O.P.’s Siren Song 6 February 2004 |
896 | |
|
| Daniel Henninger WSJ OpinionJournal |
The Jacksonian Era 6 February 2004 |
1221 | 0 | 1D= Begin with: Democratic |