This year’s State of the Union was about 400 words shorter than last year’s State of the Union address. Likely due the changes in Congress, this year’s address also had nearly 30 fewer applauses (77 compared to 106 in 2010) and about a third of the laughter (4 compared to 12 in 2010). The word clouds below illustrate some of the key themes of the two speeches. 

 

I also did some text analysis of the speech this year compared to last year which provides some interesting signs of times.