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’
.
