Idiocracy: Mitt Romney’s Convention Speech Was Written Below An 8th Grade Level

The Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level test is used extensively in the field of education to judge the readability level of various books and texts. It’s results reveal the education required to understand the text.

An analysis of the speech that Mitt Romney delivered at the Republican National Kvetch-a-Sketch came in at slightly below an eighth grade level (7.98). For comparison, After President Obama’s State of the Union Address, Fox News published a story that reported his Flesch–Kincaid results at 8.4. They accompanied the story with this graphic:

Fox Nation

Clearly the implication is that Obama is an idiot for having delivered a speech that only scored 8.4 on the Flesch–Kincaid test. Therefore, Romney is even dumber for having scored only 7.98, and Fox will be posting an article saying so shortly. And if you believe that you’re even dumber than the congressional Tea Party Republicans who performed even lower on a series of these tests conducted by the Sunlight Foundation.

For the record, Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention scored well above the ninth grade level (9.59). That may account for why the ratings for Fox News during the DNC were so depressed. Their audience wouldn’t have been able to understand the big, multisyllabic words that the President used. After all, studies have shown that Fox viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. Which in turn may also explain why Fox viewers enjoyed Clint Eastwood’s speech more than any other at the RNC, including Romney’s.

Clint Eastwood

Update: I also ran the a few more scores that might be of interest:
Michelle Obama: 7.81
Ann Romney: 6.25
Bill Clinton: 10.46
Clint Eastwood: 4.51

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3 thoughts on “Idiocracy: Mitt Romney’s Convention Speech Was Written Below An 8th Grade Level

  1. So where on the Flesch–Kincaid list was the last president’s speeches? You know, the “president” that was never legally elected, President Obama’s predecessor.

    Bet you won’t hear that grading from Shlox Snooze…

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