The SOTU "M" Word Report

CBS News provided a word cloud graphic to depict the President's State of the Union and its 7,000 words graphically.

CBSNews.com SOTU word cloud.  The larger the word, the more frequent the mention.

It shows the "M" word in the middle, front and center. Manufacturing got mentioned four paragraphs and less than four minutes into the speech. The 15 times a variation of the word manufacturing was used means the word got some decent play for the American people and media to absorb.

I rate that a very good thing. And I was a skeptic going in that I'd hear the word at all.

Mitch Daniels' word cloud courtesy of TBO.com

Though, personally, I'm a fan of the successful, pragmatic job Mitch Daniels has done as Governor of Indiana, I can't say I'm a fan of his remarks' lack of focus on manufacturing and lack of use of the "m" word in his Republican response. His speech gave us zero references to manufacturing. Zero.

I think the President could be riding the tide of a manufacturing renaissance. His timing is good as many "swing" states are also manufacturing-oriented ones. If the SOTU is any indication, he may be seizing it as an issue all his own too.