On the Records: A "Fed Up" Word Cloud

The Austin American-Statesman has a nice piece today on Gov. Rick Perry's new book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington.

Reporters Kate Alexander and Corrie MacLaggan quickly combed through the 227-page text, summarizing Perry's "unabashed call to action." A snippet:

In his new book about states' rights, GOP Gov. Rick Perry celebrates the spirit of tea party activists and others who, in the name of the Constitution, he says, are mounting a revolution to save America from grave and imminent danger.

He blames what he sees as the invasive and corrosive nature of the federal government on everyone from President Barack Obama to Republicans who "capitulate" through compromise, including George W. Bush.

The "winds of change" that are blowing through the country are not just directed at Democrats, Perry argues, but also at Republicans who have not resisted efforts to expand federal power.

I wondered how the book would render as a word cloud, a visualization technique that enlarges words by frequency. We obtained a digital copy of the book, which has 56,393 words (excluding footnotes and Newt Gingrich's forward), and created the cloud below. Not surprisingly, Perry uses "federal," "government," "people," "Washington" and "states" most often.