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Question of the day

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Illinois

In politics, perception often trumps reality. Put another way: What people think they know about a politician, an issue or anything else goes a long way to determining how they feel about it — whether or not their initial perception is based in reality or not.

That perception obsession has lead us to seek out any and every tool that helps us get at how people think about their politics — and each other.

Today we happened upon an awesome map put together by Renee DiResta at her No Upside blog. What DiResta did is simple but revealing. In Google she typed in “Why is [fill in the blank state] so…” and let Google’s autocomplete function, which tracks the most common words typed after “so”, do the rest. She mapped the top four auto-completes for each state. […]

* One of the top four autocomplete terms for Alabama, Missisippi, Georgia and South Carolina is “racist”. It’s the most common autocomplete in Alabama and South Carolina and number two in Mississippi and Georgia.

* In California, Oregon and Washington State, one of the top four terms is “why is [state] so liberal?” That’s also true in Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts.

* The four top Google auto-completes for “Why is Illinois so…” are…

Humid

Corrupt

Flat

Broke

* Methodology…

The data set is Google auto-complete results for “Why is [insert state] so “. I took up to four results per state - one or two states didn’t even have four results - then grouped the results by term. I categorized the terms into buckets: economic, geographic, health, history, political, population, sports, weather, and “culture/sentiment”. The latter was a bit of a catch-all for ‘judgey terms’, ranging from “awesome” to “boring” to “racist.” Sometimes the classification wasn’t immediately obvious; for example, “Why is Alabama so good?” is pretty vague, so I followed the query through to the results, and determined it was most likely sports-related. (“Why is New Jersey so bad?”, however, was not about sports.) Your search results may vary (due to past search history, region, autocomplete results changing due to news events, and other factors). I did run these in both Incognito mode and regular mode, and the vast majority of results were identical. If you’d like the raw data, contact me.

* The Question: What one word immediately comes to your own mind when asked “Why is Illinois so…”?

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 10:35 am

Comments

whiny

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 10:41 am
in denial.

Comment by walkinfool Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 10:44 am
corrupt

Comment by geronimo Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 10:45 am
…..bad at electing leaders

Comment by TCB Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 10:48 am
Illinois

Comment by Anonymice Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 10:49 am
entertaining

Comment by OneMan Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 10:51 am
unconstitutional

Comment by Springfield Dan Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 10:54 am
oxymoron

hyperbole

misundererstood?????

Pongee - I couldn’t help it …

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 10:57 am
lop-sided?

Republican-less

leader-less(?)

desperate

hollow???

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 11:01 am
complacent

Comment by zatoichi Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 11:05 am
long

Comment by Way Way Down Here Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 11:07 am
inept

Comment by Raising Kane Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 11:08 am
regressive

Comment by reformer Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 11:08 am
ridiculed?

caricatured

faux

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 11:12 am
home to the dopiest GOPies
Fire,Aim, Ready

Comment by CircularFiringSquad Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 11:14 am
Humid? Really???

Comment by Yosarrian Lives Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 11:22 am
Are there lots more returns for the Illinois ones (i.e. did Illinois folk vote early and often on these)?

Comment by titan Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 11:34 am
dysfunctional

Comment by phocion Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 11:48 am
apocalyptic

procrastinating

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 11:49 am
stupid

Comment by Sideliner Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 12:14 pm
confused

confusing

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 12:16 pm
echo geronimo - corrupt

Comment by RNUG Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 12:25 pm
Parochial

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 12:28 pm
Backwards

Comment by Cheswick Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 12:30 pm
great. Come on folks, think how much greatness has to counterbalance the politics for us to stay here!

Comment by lake county democrat Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 12:42 pm
acrophobic

Comment by Calhoun Native Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 1:04 pm
Democratic.

Comment by Cincinnatus Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 1:04 pm
G☺☹fy.

– MrJM

Comment by MrJM Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 1:17 pm
broke

Comment by Leroy Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 1:29 pm
Rusty.

Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 2:13 pm
Madiganed.

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 2:36 pm
Reproductively skyward.

Comment by Tommydanger Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 2:44 pm
Bi-polar (Ans. If extended westward the Mason-Dixon Line would run about 3.5 miles south of the center of Springfield)

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 3:09 pm
monocultured

Comment by Boone Logan Square Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 3:22 pm
Contrarian

(Ans. Most states elect councilmen, Illinois elects aldermen. Most states have District Attorneys, Illinois has State’s Attorneys. Most states have the Department of Motor Vehicles, Illinois has the Secretary of State’s Office. Most states have their “goo goos” get elected Secretary of State, where they run clean elections, Illinois in the not so distant past elected its biggest crooks Secretary of State where they had nothing to do with running elections. 25 states use the term “patrol” in the title of their statewide law enforcement agency, Illinois uses the term “State Police” … . )

Comment by Anyone Remember? Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 3:25 pm
leftcoastish

Comment by railrat Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 3:52 pm
doomed

Comment by Carlos S. Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 4:49 pm
Cesspool

Comment by jt Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 4:53 pm
corrupt

Comment by Marty Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 5:12 pm
Lovely in the fall. (and liberal)

Comment by RightGirl Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 5:54 pm
–Bi-polar (Ans. If extended westward the Mason-Dixon Line would run about 3.5 miles south of the center of Springfield)–

Dude, it was supposed to be a one-word answer. If it take you the long way around the barn to explain, it ain’t working.

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 6:33 pm
Chicago-centric

Comment by roadiepig Monday, Aug 20, 12 @ 9:29 pm