Words matter.

And when those words are part of a Denver mayoral inaugural address, they can matter a lot in terms of the direction an administration aims to take over the next four years.

That direction can change quite a bit over time. So, Colorado Politics did a word count comparison of the inaugural addresses that Denver Mayor Michael Hancock delivered in his first speech as mayor in July 2011 and his final inaugural speech delivered eight years later on Monday.

In both years, Hancock came off a bruising runoff election in which he emerged with a double-digit victory margin – 16 percentage points over former state lawmaker Chris Romer in 2011 and 12.7 points over urban planner Jamie Giellis in 2019.

We ran both speeches through a word cloud app that creates a visual representation of the language used with the most frequently used words appearing the largest.

The difference between the two word clouds was remarkable.

In that first inaugural address, Hancock most often used words like “Denver,” “mayor,” “together” and “great.”

In this third and final inaugural, he most often used words like “must,” “make,” “people” and “never.”

The word “make” drew heavily on Hancock’s recurring riff on a line of poetry by Thomas Hornsby Ferril: “You didn’t know you came to make a city, nobody knows when a city’s going to happen.”

There are many words that occur in both speeches, but the emphasis on some words provides clues to how different Hancock is approaching his last term as opposed to his first.

For example, the word “neighborhoods” looms far larger in 2019 than 2011. That might be telling – given the criticism Hancock’s opponents lobbed at him during the campaign. They often complained that developers were running roughshod over neighborhoods.

In that same vein, the words “people” and “residents” were far more prominent this year than eight years ago.

There are also some words that Hancock leaned on this year that appear hardly at all in his 2011 address.

“Equity” would be one of them – not surprising given Hancock’s pledge that his final four years would be focused on finding equity for people who felt left out of Denver’s booming economy.

“Affordable” is another newcomer in the 2019 speech, reflecting what many contend is a scarcity of affordable housing in Denver today.

“Consensus” occurs a lot this year but not so much in that first speech. This might reflect that fact that voters delivered a wave of change to the Denver City Council in the form of five new council people including three who defeated incumbents.

“Change” also loomed large this year – although mostly because of a section of Hancock’s 2019 speech that was devoted to climate change.

This year’s inaugural speech also was notable for what it did not contain: A detailed roll call of new programs and initiatives.

Instead it relied on words like “history” and “generations” and “community” all of which suggest a speech written more with the long view in mind.

The 2011 speech was written by former Hancock spokeswoman Amber Miller with assistance from current Hancock spokesman Michael Strott and Deputy Chief of Staff Evan Dreyer.

The 2019 speech was written by Strott with assistance from Dreyer and Theresa Marchetta, the mayor’s director of strategic communication and media policy.

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