Call him old-fashioned. $10 words. Coordinating conjunctions. All the good stuff.
Herb Kohl, Mr. Elder Statesman himself, is one of Congress’ most sophisticated talkers, according to a new study by the Sunlight Foundation.
Using a database of Congressional speech, the transparency-focused nonprofit scored 530 senators and House members on their mastery of verbal communication. The rubric used rewarded speechifying as well as all kinds of coruscating verbosity: Long words hopped up a politico’s resulting “grade level” score, and so did meandering, multi-clause sentences.
According to the study, Kohl speaks at almost a 14th grade level (sophomore in college?). All other members of Wisconsin’s delegation placed in the high school range, except for Senator Ron Johnson and U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, who were rated as speaking from the floors of the Senate and House at about an eighth-grade level.
Full results below. Sunlight notes that, in general, scores are slipping and may suggest a rise in plain-spoken statesmanship. Interestingly, moderates, such as Kohl, were among the most highly rated by the study. Conservatives were among the lowest-rated.
Herb Kohl (D) … 13.85
Tammy Baldwin (D) … 12.92
Tom Petri (R) … 12.29
Gwen Moore (D) … 11.72
Ron Kind (D) … 11.68
Jim Sensenbrenner (R) … 11.56
Congress-wide average … 10.6
Reid Ribble (R) … 10.15
Paul Ryan (R) … 9.69
Ron Johnson (R) … 8.62
Sean Duffy (R) … 8.09
