Washington (CNN) – There is, apparently, an "I" in Team Harold.
In his 764 word New York Times op-ed outlining his reasons for not running for the U.S. Senate in New York, former Democratic Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. used the word "I" 27 times. He averaged use of the personal pronoun about once every 28 words.
In that context, he uses the word "I" far more than he mentions "New York" (seven times), "New Yorker" (six times), "constituents" (one time) and "voters" (zero) - combined.
For reference, according to the website wordcount.org, the word "I" is the 11th most commonly used word in the English language.
From CNN Politics
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Hmmm, this could possibly be the worst news story in CNN history.
Anyone ever keep track of how many times Obama says I?
How is this different than any other politician in either party? All they know is their over bloated egos, they have no clue to the struggles of the American citizen. Mr. Ford thought he could move here and take a senate seat away from NYS with ease. No one bought into his grifter game. In fact I'm thinking "We the People" are sick of the scams, con games and grifting from both of the major parties.
As Dick Cheney said everyday to the American People,"SO",we stole the election and now me and my little buddy,George here, are going to do what ever we want,whenever we want to.hahaha
First prize for the most non-story of the day!
This is groundbreaking journalism, CNN. I smell Pulitzer! Have a nice day!
..this is a perfect reason why CNN is losing to the other cable news...
this is not news.......who cares about "i".......CNN you are destroying yourself
Why would you report this? Do you folks have editors?
This is the most useless article ever printed by CNN. If Harold Ford is not running and his decisions was made on his beliefs, then who else would he be talking about except himself.
If he had decide to run, most of his messages would have been about what he would have done, which would have to be presented by using the pronoun "I".
The word to focus on in politics today is "Ignorance".
How many times ignorance is being used in making decisions as they relates to people's lives?
I have seen some dumb reporting in my life, but this ranks up there with the best of them. Truly a very dumb piece of work. What is the purpose of this "article" – well, there is none.
He was trying to describe his reasons for not running, so the focus should have on him, and not on someone else. I think, eventually, Ford will make a positive impact on the great state of New York.
Amazing. Now that Harold Ford has dropped out, CNN has decided to accurately report on the man's character.
So what?
This blurb is simply juvenile. One would have expected an essay explaining a personal decision to use the personal pronoun more often than average. And the statistic regarding word counts simply shows an inability to draw appropriate conclusions from empirical evidence. The ranking of "I" among all words is only helpful if we know the rankings of all the other words he used. A average frequency for "I" rather than an ordinal ranking would be the appropriate statistic to employ.
Are you for real CNN? THIS is "news"? I pooped 3 times yesterday...do I get front page?
Sorry Ford. No Carpetbaggers Allowed.
Gillibrand is doing a great job as Senator, and you're only getting in the way.
since when did it become journalism to count the number of uses of a certain word in a speech? Oh yeah, since FOX NEWS invented that as a measure of how self-absorbed President Obama apparently is. Nice one CNN!
get a talking point memo from the GOP before writing this "news story" CNN?
okay and....................."I" think this is pointless
This is the very definition of trivia. Next you will tell us there is no 'I' in winning. It certainly is not news worthy information. It implies there is some underlying, dastardly selfishness afoot. That's just silliness. C'mon, Abby ! Find something else more meaningful for us to read !
There was a similar story on Fox about one of President Obama's speeches recently, so the 'bottom' has already been reached once. Why try to 'out-bottom' Fox ?
You forgot to mention one of the "I's" he said. " I was bullied by the White House and Schumer not to run". Nice little omission. Don't want to tarnish the Democrats I guess.
he and The Messiah have a lot in commmon
i will say why is he or this matter news, do we really care, who is Harold Ford Jr, but another self-serving polictican
H. Ford madec an excellent decision at this time.
nobama uses I alot more in a speech than Ford every did. Why does not CNN point that out?
Who cares? This is potentially a research topic, but it is not news.