Obama’s SOTU: Uniting the Country…through Pronouns?

Obama’s 2011 State of the Union incorporated the 2nd largest percentage of first-person plural pronouns since FDR – one year after his 2010 Address delivered the 7th largest use of first-person singular pronouns

It is sometimes said that politicians – particularly those who attain the highest levels of elected office like that of the presidency – have unusually large egos.

But when the President of the United States holds court before tens of millions of Americans in important speeches such as the State of the Union Address, it is usually in his best interest to check that ego at the podium, and talk about the nation, not himself.

One rhetorical device the president can employ to still get his message across and advocate his policies is to deliver those remarks utilizing first-person plural pronouns (e.g. we, us, our) rather than singular pronouns (e.g. I, me, mine, myself).

By doing so, the president’s language can strategically (even if superficially) frame his message as unifying the country, bridging political parties, and, most importantly, linking and identifying the president himself with the American people.

But not all presidents take the same approach when peppering their speech with plural versus singular first-person pronouns – and virtually none have taken it to the extent of Barack Obama, who nearly made (presidential) linguistic history last week.

A Smart Politics analysis of orally delivered State of the Union Addresses since Franklin Roosevelt’s first address in 1934 finds President Obama’s 2011 speech recorded the second largest percentage of first-personal plural pronouns out of nearly 70 such addresses.

In total, more than 5 percent of Obama’s speech included these “unifying” pronouns – 354 out of nearly 6,900 words – or 5.14 percent of the President’s speech.

That means more than 1 out of every 20 words delivered by Obama fell into the pronoun families of “we, our, and us.”

Obama’s 2011 State of the Union included:

· 147 uses of the word “we,” plus another 40 cases of its related offshoots “we’ll,” “we’re,” and “we’ve.”

· 122 instances of the word “our,” plus four more of “ours” and “ourselves.”

· 33 uses of the word “us,” plus another eight cases of “let’s” (let us).

The only president over the past 77 years who delivered a State of the Union address with a larger percentage of first-person plural pronouns was Democrat Harry Truman in 1951 – in his first address after the onset of the Korean War.

In that address, Truman used 308 of these pronouns in his 3,989-word speech, or 7.72 percent of the address – nearly double the 3.88 percent presidential average over the past 75+ years.

Interestingly, each of the top six slots for State of the Union speeches with the most uses of “we, our, and us” are all held by Democrats.

After Truman in 1951 and Obama in 2011, comes Jimmy Carter in 1979 (#3, 5.13 percent), Truman in 1952 (#4, 5.04 percent), Truman in 1950 (tied for #5, 4.99 percent), and Bill Clinton in 1997 (tied for #5, 4.99 percent).

Obama’s 2011 address is already noteworthy for recording the second lowest Flesch-Kincaid score out of the 69 oral State of the Union speeches since 1934.

Many conservatives criticized the President’s speech for coming up short on details in his discussion of the country’s big problems, such as how Obama will tackle the federal budget deficit and national debt, and how he plans to pay for the myriad of domestic policy programs that he advocated in his speech, such as education and infrastructure.

But while the President’s SOTU may have been thin on the mechanics of policy implementation, and comparatively simplistic in sentence length and word length, his speech was long on first-person plural pronouns, delivered strategically to signify his personal relationship with Americans.

For example, Obama interjected several of these pronouns right off the bat, in his introductory remarks on the first substantive policy area of his speech – the economy:

“We are poised for progress. Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back…But we have never measured progress by these yardsticks alone. We measure progress by the success of our people. By the prospects of a small business owner who dreams of turning a good idea into a thriving enterprise. By the opportunities for a better life that we pass on to our children.” (emphasis added)

The President continued to implement first-person plural pronouns in the very next section of his speech, this time to paint a picture of unification between Democrats and Republicans in D.C. and the need for bi-partisanship for the good of the nation:

“That’s the project the American people want us to work on. Together. We did that in December. Thanks to the tax cuts we passed, Americans’ paychecks are a little bigger today….But we have to do more. These steps we’ve taken over the last two years may have broken the back of this recession, but to win the future, we’ll need to take on challenges that have been decades in the making.”

And, of course, Obama delivered both of his signature lines of the evening employing these very same plural pronouns:

“This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.”

“We do big things.”

In only two other speeches since FDR has a president included a larger raw number of such pronouns in a State of the Union speech – although both of those speeches were more than 2,100 words longer than Obama’s: Bill Clinton in 1995 (415 such pronouns, ranked #13 by percentage) and 2000 (397, #21).

Percentage of First-Person Plural Pronouns in SOTU Addresses, 1934-Present

Rank	Year	President	Total	Words	%
1	1951	Truman	308	3,989	7.72
2	2011	Obama	354	6,891	5.14
3	1979	Carter	168	3,275	5.13
4	1952	Truman	269	5,336	5.04
5	1950	Truman	256	5,126	4.99
5	1997	Clinton	337	6,758	4.99
7	1985	Reagan	205	4,226	4.85
8	1978	Carter	218	4,587	4.75
9	2006	Bush 43	250	5,303	4.71
10	1980	Carter	161	3,469	4.64
11	1999	Clinton	344	7,490	4.59
12	1984	Reagan	227	4,952	4.58
13	1995	Clinton	415	9,181	4.52
14	1987	Reagan	171	3,799	4.50
15	1991	Bush 41	177	3,941	4.49
16	2002	Bush 43	171	3,823	4.47
17	1996	Clinton	282	6,335	4.45
17	2008	Bush 43	255	5,730	4.45
19	2010	Obama	321	7,237	4.44
20	1986	Reagan	153	3,479	4.40
21	2000	Clinton	397	9,073	4.38
22	1948	Truman	222	5,087	4.36
23	1949	Truman	144	3,397	4.24
24	1990	Bush 41	159	3,766	4.22
25	1962	Kennedy	270	6,423	4.20
26	1994	Clinton	308	7,393	4.17
27	1983	Reagan	230	5,562	4.14
28	1967	Johnson	293	7,108	4.12
29	1964	Johnson	130	3,182	4.09
30	1965	Johnson	178	4,403	4.04
31	1998	Clinton	294	7,302	4.03
32	2007	Bush 43	220	5,547	3.97
33	1970	Nixon	175	4,462	3.92
34	1988	Reagan	190	4,865	3.91
35	1968	Johnson	185	4,861	3.81
36	1972	Nixon	150	3,968	3.78
37	1941	Roosevelt	124	3,312	3.74
38	1974	Nixon	192	5,159	3.72
38	1961	Kennedy	192	5,163	3.72
40	1942	Roosevelt	130	3,506	3.71
41	2003	Bush 43	198	5,374	3.68
42	1982	Reagan	189	5,178	3.65
43	2005	Bush 43	184	5,053	3.64
44	1976	Ford	176	4,953	3.55
45	1943	Roosevelt	162	4,588	3.53
46	1959	Eisenhower	174	4,943	3.52
47	1958	Eisenhower	169	4,898	3.45
48	1939	Roosevelt	129	3,765	3.43
49	1966	Johnson	184	5,484	3.36
50	2004	Bush 43	173	5,172	3.34
51	1960	Eisenhower	182	5,615	3.24
52	1992	Bush 41	164	5,077	3.23
53	1957	Eisenhower	132	4,126	3.20
54	1977	Ford	148	4,710	3.14
54	1955	Eisenhower	227	7,234	3.14
56	1940	Roosevelt	100	3,198	3.13
57	1969	Johnson	126	4,099	3.07
58	1963	Kennedy	163	5,320	3.06
59	1975	Ford	123	4,112	2.99
60	1954	Eisenhower	177	5,970	2.96
61	1971	Nixon	125	4,483	2.79
62	1947	Truman	161	6,034	2.67
63	1953	Eisenhower	184	6,921	2.66
64	1944	Roosevelt	98	3,800	2.58
65	1934	Roosevelt	56	2,226	2.52
66	1935	Roosevelt	82	3,515	2.33
67	1936	Roosevelt	70	3,820	1.83
67	1937	Roosevelt	50	2,732	1.83
69	1938	Roosevelt	73	4,697	1.55
		Total	13,404	345,563	3.88

Table indicates the percentage of first-person plural pronouns (e.g. our, ours, ourself, ourselves, us, let’s, we, we’d, we’ll, we’re, we’ve) of the total words delivered in the address. Data compiled by Smart Politics. Excluded from analysis were five written addresses (by Truman in 1946 and 1953, Eisenhower in 1961, Nixon in 1973, and Carter in 1981) and two addresses that were delivered orally, but not by the President himself (Roosevelt in 1945, Eisenhower in 1956).

But if Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address was the President’s “unification” speech, it differs significantly from the one he delivered last year.

President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union Address was the seventh heaviest first-person singular pronoun-laden speech since FDR, with 1.66 percent of the address containing pronouns such as “me,” “myself,” and “I.”

Only six other speeches across the last 13 presidents had interjected a larger percentage of such self-referential pronouns: George H. Bush in 1992 (#1, 2.76 percent), Lyndon Johnson in 1969 (#2, 2.10 percent), Gerald Ford in 1977 (#3, 2.08 percent), Bill Clinton in 2000 (#4, 1.81 percent), Richard Nixon in 1974 (#5, 1.74 percent), and Ford in 1976 (#6, 1.68 percent).

For example, look at the contrast in Obama’s introductory remarks on the economy in 2010 compared to the passage quoted above, and notice how he took a decidedly different rhetorical approach:

“So I know the anxieties that are out there right now. They’re not new. These struggles are the reason I ran for president. These struggles are what I’ve witnessed for years in places like Elkhart, Indiana. Galesburg, Illinois. I hear about them in the letters that I read each night.”

As well as when he tackled his pet project of health care reform:

“I didn’t choose to tackle this issue to get some legislative victory under my belt. And by now it should be fairly obvious that I didn’t take on health care because it was good politics. I took on health care because of the stories I’ve heard from Americans with pre-existing conditions whose lives depend on getting coverage…“

But in his 2011 Address – coming off an election two and a half months prior which saw a rebuke of the President’s policies and the Democratic Party in a GOP landslide at the ballot box – Obama backed off dramatically from these first-person singular pronouns, cutting the total number by nearly half: from 120 in 2010 to just 73 this year (or just 1.06 percent of his speech).

And while Obama’s 2011 Address still recorded the 24th largest percentage use of “me, myself, and I’s” since FDR, it was only slightly above the 1.00 percent average across the last 13 presidents.

Percentage of First-Person Singular Pronouns in SOTU Addresses, 1934-Present

Rank	Year	President	Total	Words	%
1	1992	Bush 41	140	5,077	2.76
2	1969	Johnson	86	4,099	2.10
3	1977	Ford	98	4,710	2.08
4	2000	Clinton	164	9,073	1.81
5	1974	Nixon	90	5,159	1.74
6	1976	Ford	83	4,953	1.68
7	2010	Obama	120	7,237	1.66
8	1987	Reagan	59	3,799	1.55
9	1995	Clinton	141	9,181	1.54
10	1990	Bush 41	56	3,766	1.49
11	1999	Clinton	110	7,490	1.47
12	1994	Clinton	106	7,393	1.43
13	1998	Clinton	101	7,302	1.38
14	1996	Clinton	87	6,335	1.37
15	1975	Ford	56	4,112	1.36
16	2002	Bush 43	50	3,823	1.31
17	1988	Reagan	63	4,865	1.29
19	1968	Johnson	59	4,861	1.21
19	1997	Clinton	82	6,758	1.21
20	1986	Reagan	39	3,479	1.12
21	1978	Carter	51	4,587	1.11
22	1965	Johnson	48	4,403	1.09
23	1934	Roosevelt	24	2,226	1.08
24	2011	Obama	73	6,891	1.06
25	1971	Nixon	47	4,483	1.05
26	1935	Roosevelt	36	3,515	1.02
27	1967	Johnson	70	7,108	0.98
28	1936	Roosevelt	36	3,820	0.94
29	2005	Bush 43	47	5,053	0.93
29	1960	Eisenhower	52	5,615	0.93
31	1984	Reagan	45	4,952	0.91
32	1983	Reagan	48	5,562	0.86
33	1982	Reagan	42	5,178	0.81
33	1970	Nixon	36	4,462	0.81
35	1979	Carter	26	3,275	0.79
35	2004	Bush 43	41	5,172	0.79
35	1954	Eisenhower	47	5,970	0.79
38	1972	Nixon	31	3,968	0.78
38	1980	Carter	27	3,469	0.78
40	2008	Bush 43	44	5,730	0.77
41	1961	Kennedy	39	5,163	0.76
42	2006	Bush 43	40	5,303	0.75
42	1966	Johnson	41	5,484	0.75
44	1955	Eisenhower	53	7,234	0.73
45	1938	Roosevelt	34	4,697	0.72
46	1964	Johnson	22	3,182	0.69
47	1958	Eisenhower	33	4,898	0.67
47	2003	Bush 43	36	5,374	0.67
47	2007	Bush 43	37	5,547	0.67
50	1947	Truman	40	6,034	0.66
50	1944	Roosevelt	25	3,800	0.66
52	1950	Truman	32	5,126	0.62
53	1991	Bush 41	24	3,941	0.61
53	1962	Kennedy	39	6,423	0.61
53	1959	Eisenhower	30	4,943	0.61
56	1949	Truman	20	3,397	0.59
56	1937	Roosevelt	16	2,732	0.59
58	1957	Eisenhower	24	4,126	0.58
58	1952	Truman	31	5,336	0.58
60	1943	Roosevelt	26	4,588	0.57
61	1985	Reagan	21	4,226	0.50
62	1948	Truman	24	5,087	0.47
63	1953	Eisenhower	31	6,921	0.45
64	1951	Truman	15	3,989	0.38
65	1939	Roosevelt	14	3,765	0.37
65	1942	Roosevelt	13	3,506	0.37
67	1963	Kennedy	19	5,320	0.36
68	1940	Roosevelt	9	3,198	0.28
69	1941	Roosevelt	9	3,312	0.27
		Total	3,458	345,563	1.00

Table indicates the percentage of first-person plural pronouns (e.g. I, I’d, I’ll, I’m, I’ve, me, mine, my, myself) of the total words delivered in the address. Data compiled by Smart Politics. Excluded from analysis were five written addresses (by Truman in 1946 and 1953, Eisenhower in 1961, Nixon in 1973, and Carter in 1981) and two addresses that were delivered orally, but not by the President himself (Roosevelt in 1945, Eisenhower in 1956).

Overall, when examining the ratio of first-person plural vs. singular pronouns across all State of the Union addresses delivered by each respective president, Obama ranks just 8th out of 13, with 3.50 plural pronouns for every singular pronoun in his two speeches.

Harry Truman rates the highest, with an 8.40 to 1 ratio, followed by John Kennedy (6.44 to 1), Jimmy Carter (5.26 to 1), and George W. Bush (at 4.92 to 1).

Gerald Ford’s language was the most self-referential, with just 1.89 first-person plural pronouns for every 1 singular pronoun spoken.

Ratio of First-Person Plural vs. Singular Pronouns in SOTU Addresses, 1934-Present

Rank	President	Plural %	Singular %	Ratio
1	Truman	4.69	0.56	8.40
2	Kennedy	3.70	0.57	6.44
3	Carter	4.83	0.92	5.26
4	Bush 43	4.03	0.82	4.92
5	Eisenhower	3.14	0.68	4.61
6	F. Roosevelt	2.74	0.62	4.44
7	Reagan	4.26	0.99	4.31
8	Obama	4.78	1.37	3.50
9	L. Johnson	3.76	1.12	3.36
10	Nixon	3.55	1.13	3.15
11	Clinton	4.44	1.48	3.01
12	Bush 41	3.91	1.72	2.27
13	Ford	3.25	1.72	1.89
	Average	3.88	1.00	3.88

Data compiled by Smart Politics. Excluded from analysis were five written addresses (by Truman in 1946 and 1953, Eisenhower in 1961, Nixon in 1973, and Carter in 1981) and two addresses that were delivered orally, but not by the President himself (Roosevelt in 1945, Eisenhower in 1956).

Follow Smart Politics on Twitter.