Introducing the "Barack-Hillary Ratio"

If you were to search for a tipping point, the moment when the Democratic Party became the party of Barack Obama, no longer the party of the Clintons, you would pinpoint May 2008.

In that month, Barack Obama received 385 mentions in The New York Times. Hillary Clinton received 365 mentions.

This turned out to be more than a tip. Everything toppled.

Post-May 2008, Obama soaked up greater and greater shares of the spotlight. As you'd expect, he shone brightest in the month of his General Election victory, with 973 mentions in The New York Times. By then, Hillary was down to a measly 176.

Obama's takeover was methodical. Starting with January 2006, an exclusive Rapier analysis shows Obama creeping up closer and closer to Hillary, in terms of New York Times mentions.

A theory: Going forward, the Barack-Hillary Ratio will provide a leading indicator on Obama's hold on his presidency. Obama and Hillary are the two power centers of the Democratic Party. To the degree that Obama is in control, he should be holding onto his lead in New York Times mentions. If Hillary closes the gap, watch out for fireworks in the administration.

Click on the graphic at the top of this entry for a better view of the data. At zero, Obama and Hillary are getting equal numbers of mentions in The New York Times. In the blue shaded area, Hillary is leading in mentions. The line graph shows Obama's rising mentions as a ratio of Hillary's mentions.

Obama briefly passed her in April 2007, when he won the SC Democratic Party debate (click here for a detailed timeline of the election).

Hillary pulled ahead after that, until Obama caught her with primary wins in Oregon and North Carolina in May 2008. This locked up the hearts and minds of superdelegates and the attention of national media.

The Rapier will update the Barack-Hillary Ratio monthly and will take a look at the wild card tangled up in all of this media coverage: Bill Clinton himself.

Methodology note:

Using The New York Times online "advanced search" feature, The Rapier tallied the number of mentions of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for each month, from January 2006 through December 2008. For Obama, the tally included the number of mentions of "Barack Obama" and "Barack Hussein Obama" but did not count mentions alone of his first or last names. For Clinton, the tally included the number of mentions of "Hillary Clinton" and "Hillary Rodham Clinton" but did not count mentions alone of her first or last names.

The Rapier created the ratio by taking the number of Barack Obama mentions and dividing this number by the tally of Hillary Clinton mentions. The Rapier then took that ratio and subtracted 1. This created a value where negative numbers indicated a greater number of Hillary Clinton mentions. A positive number represents more Barack Obama mentions.

Raw data below. First column is the date searched. First number is the tally of Barack Obama mentions. Last number is the tally of Hillary Clinton mentions.

Jan-06 2, 52
Feb-06 7, 69
Mar-06 9, 84
Apr-06 7, 39
May-06 13, 79
Jun-06 5, 64
Jul-06 6, 52
Aug-06 2, 73
Sep-06 7, 70
Oct-06 23, 111
Nov-06 39, 94
Dec-06 47, 70
Jan-07 89, 118
Feb-07 113, 147
Mar-07 84, 113
Apr-07 112, 105
May-07 92, 112
Jun-07 82, 124
Jul-07 87, 119
Aug-07 76, 120
Sep-07 94, 174
Oct-07 94, 188
Nov-07 110, 206
Dec-07 164, 225
Jan-08 336, 429
Feb-08 450, 497
Mar-08 399, 410
Apr-08 361, 396
May-08 385, 365
Jun-08 408, 218
Jul-08 379, 90
Aug-08 433, 160
Sep-08 475, 115
Oct-08 603, 94
Nov-08 973, 176
Dec-08 658, 157