"Jobs" was the word of choice in the first debate.
It's the jobs, stupid! That's the verdict on buzzwords in the first presidential debate, anyway.
Americans had overwhelmingly predicted the top word of the night would be "economy," according to a survey commissioned by CafePress, a company that sells political merchandise. But the word "jobs" was actually the most used.
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And as the vice presidential candidates debate Thursday night, CafePress says it expects "jobs" to be the most employed word again, followed by "economy" and the "middle class," as well as "taxes" and the "budget."
In the first debate, there was one group among the 1,200 people surveyed that correctly guessed "jobs" would steal the show, says Marc Cowlin, director of marketing for CafePress, and they were 25- to 35-year-olds. Cowlin thinks those respondents may be "potentially more in touch with the unemployment issues than some of the other demographics."
"Jobs" was mentioned 36 times in the debate, according to the CafePress count, with Mitt Romney leading the way with 22 uses of the buzzword, compared to President Obama's 14. "Middle class" took second place, with 22 mentions (Romney 3, Obama 19).
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"Economy" was in third place, with 18 total utterances by the presidential candidates (Romney 14, Obama 4).
Cowlin says CafePress product designs are crowd-sourced, with over 3 million independent designers worldwide, which makes it a good indicator of hot topics customers are actually interested in. Every four years, sales of political merchandise, including those featuring buzzwords, skyrocket.
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