Trailhead : Tubers

Debate By Numbers

Chadwick Matlin — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Using transcripts from CNN and the New York Times debate analyzer, I crunched some stats from last night's GOP debate.

3: Number of times Hillary Clinton was mentioned
4: Number of times Bill Clinton was mentioned
2: Number of times Mitt Romney mentioned health care
0: Number of times any other candidate mentioned health care
5: Number of times Rudy Giuliani said "Islamic"
3: Number of times any other candidate said "Islamic," "Islam," or "Muslim"
4: Number of times Duncan Hunter addressed Anderson Cooper as "Cooper." No other candidate followed suit.
2: Number of times the candidates mentioned President Bush
26: Number of times, according to CNN's transcript, the audience laughed
5: Number of times the audience laughed after watching a question from a YouTube user
7: Number of times the audience laughed after a Fred Thompson joke
4: Number of times the audience laughed after a Mike Huckabee joke
0: Number of times the audience laughed after Ron Paul or Duncan Hunter said something

Also, a breakdown of which candidates speak the fastest. Mitt Romney's mouth was a-flappin', while Fred Thompson, unsurprisingly, was the slowest talker.

Talker	Words	Seconds	Words/sec
Moderator	2174	812	2.68
YouTube Questioners	2398	942	2.55
Giuliani	3163	945	3.35
Huckabee	1942	587	3.31
Hunter	918	293	3.13
McCain	2034	670	3.04
Paul	1288	431	2.99
Romney	3223	831	3.88
Tancredo	830	221	3.76
Thompson	1841	625	2.95

If you'd like, feel free to compare the words-per-second statistics to the Democrats'.

Demographic Breakdown

Chadwick Matlin — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 02:35:00 GMT

Through 23 questions, the breakdown of the main characters in the questions:

White men: 15

White women: 6 (including the woman from Alabama wearing a hijab)

Black men: 1

White cartoon character: 1

No Latinos, thus far.

FoxBrosStudios Background Check

Chadwick Matlin — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 02:17:00 GMT

That question from FoxBrosStudios--the one that one of the candidates scolded for exercising poor gun safety--is a low-concept offering from the award-winning team that brought you the under-the-radar hit Vigilantes. The Web-based comedy series takes place on the U.S.-Mexico border, and a cursory glimpse suggests it follows the Citizen Border Rangers, a fictional version of the Minutemen vigilantes that keep watch on the border for illegal immigrants. There's a lot of swearing (bleeped out) and a lot of jokes about the ineptitude of border security, both among vigilantes and the government.

Emilyekins Background Check

Chadwick Matlin — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:41:00 GMT

Throughout the evening, we'll be doing spot background checks on some of the YouTube questioners' video libraries.

Emilyekins, who wants to return to the small government of the GOP's past, is a blank slate on YouTube. She is a new aunt, though, and judging by her favorite videos, she's a Ron Paul kind of gal. She's a graduate student in political science at UCLA. Google freaks me out sometimes.

ConservativeVoiceUSA Background Check

Chadwick Matlin — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:33:00 GMT

ConservativeVoiceUSA, who asked the amnesty question, is a brooding vlogger. Every video on his YouTube page has the same dimly lit background that made for the awful-looking image you saw on your TV. He's 49, a Fred Thompson supporter, and has video titles like "ILLEGAL ALIENS MURDER 12 LEGAL AMERICANS DAILY 4380 A YEAR." Something tells us he fancies Tom Tancredo, too.

Pudgenet Background Check

Chadwick Matlin — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:03:00 GMT

Throughout the evening, we'll be doing spot background checks on some of the YouTube questioners' video libraries.

First up, pudgenet, who sang a nice little diddy for the candidates. Pudgenet, né Chris Nandor, is a budding musician who sings Lisa Loeb in his spare time. Nandor is the man behind the scenes at Slashdot, according to his Wikipedia page. The rest of his political-themed songs are up at a snazzy-looking Web page. Insta-judgment tells me that "Osama bin Laden, You Ruined My Birthday" is worth a listen.