[STARWISE]

I thought the time was unevenly apportioned between the candidates, and it's confirmed .. with thanks to calcowgirl:

Mr. Giuliani: "... " 43 occurences.
Mr. McCain: "... " 21 occurences.
Mr. Tancredo: "... " 15 occurences.
Mr. Hunter: "... " 11 occurences.

[STARWISE]

PING~~!

[Petronski]

When asked about war powers, Romney's insistence that he would have to check with his lawyers sounded like he didn't have a firm grasp on the mechanisms of war.

Poor Willard. Maybe next time he'll have a lawyer on stage with him, to hep him wit duh tuf stuff (like high school civics).

[mware]

My favorite Fred comment was after Matthews said that Fred would have been better served to just answer yes or no, and Fred said, “who asked you?”

[jdm]

Thanks for the post. Captain's Quarters is one of my favorite sites to visit regularly.

[Lancey Howard]

BUMP!

[PGalt]

Thanks for posting. Thank you Ed Morrissey!

[altura]

Great analysis. I watched the debate so fast (with a Tivo control in hand to fast forward through commercials and Ron Paul) that I missed Fred’s gotcha moment with the ‘who asked you’ comment. Might have to go back and catch that.

[skinkinthegrass]

Matthews will become more of a joke, if such a thing is possible at a network that employs Keith Olbermann...

Poor....Poor Chrissy.....somebody (FDT) really WHACKED him good! :D

[Fudd Fan]

Chrissie will learn to...

[pcottraux]

Is Chris Matthews a complete retard, or what?

I watched some of his analysis after the debate. Sometimes the man has trouble getting out a coherent sentence, and seems to get confused all-too-easily about what’s going to happen next, a sound byte or a commercial break.

[FlashBack]

FRed rocked!!!!

[calcowgirl]

FYI, looking at the WSJ transcript more closely, that count isn't indicative of the number of questions asked since, for some, they noted the name multiple times during the course of the same answer. And, in some cases, there was a lot of exchanges during a single question (mostly Giuliani) which inflated some numbers. I went through and looked at the number of questions actually asked. In two cases, there were rebuttals (which I counted as 1/2 questions). Here is the tally.

# of 
Questions
 15.5	  Thompson
 12	  Giuliani
 12	  McCain
 12	  Romney
  9	  Brownback
  8	  Huckabee
  8	  Tancredo
  7.5	  Paul
  7	  Hunter

[calcowgirl]

It's also interesting to look at the nature of the questions. Here's an outline of the questions asked, in sequence of the debate:
.

1		Thompson		Recession
2		Romney		Foreclosures
3		Giuliani		Private Equity / Hedge Funds
4		Paul		Private Equity / Hedge Funds
5		McCain		Tax Rates
6		Huckabee		Fair Tax
7.1		Hunter		Fair Tax / trade
7.2		Thompson		Trade (rebuttal to DH)
8		Brownback		Tax Pledge
9		Tancredo		Tax Pledge
10		Giuliani		RG Difference to Romney
11		Romney		NR Difference to Giuliani
12		Thompson		Jobs
13		Hunter		Jobs
14		McCain		Jobs
15		Tancredo		Jobs
16		Romney		Trade
17		Giuliani		Foreign Acquisitions / National Security (Dubai Ports, Unocal, Nasdaq)
18		Paul		Foreign Acquisitions / National Security (Dubai Ports, Unocal, Nasdaq)
19		Huckabee		Foreign Acquisitions / National Security (Dubai Ports, Unocal, Nasdaq)
20		McCain		Foreign Acquisitions / National Security (Dubai Ports, Unocal, Nasdaq)
21		Romney		Foreign Acquisitions / National Security (Dubai Ports, Unocal, Nasdaq)
22		Thompson		Foreign Acquisitions / National Security (Dubai Ports, Unocal, Nasdaq)
23		Hunter		Foreign Acquisitions / National Security (Dubai Ports, Unocal, Nasdaq)
24		Brownback		Foreign Acquisitions / National Security (Dubai Ports, Unocal, Nasdaq)
25		Tancredo		Foreign Acquisitions / National Security (Dubai Ports, Unocal, Nasdaq)
26		Thompson		Foreign Acquisitions / National Security (Dubai Ports, Unocal, Nasdaq)
27		Thompson		Iraq policy
28		McCain		9/11 Response
29		Paul		Iraq
30		Brownback		Iraq
31		Thompson		Iraq
32		Romney		Authorization for Military Action
33		Hunter		Authorization for Military Action
34		Paul		Authorization for Military Action
35		Huckabee		Authorization for Military Action
36		McCain		Authorization for Military Action
37		Thompson		Authorization for Military Action
38.1		Giuliani		Authorization for Military Action
38.2		Paul		Rebuttal to RG (9/11 thugs)
39		Giuliani		Environmental conservation and oil exploration
40		Giuliani		Offshore Drilling
41		Brownback		Offshore Drilling / ANWR
42		Tancredo		Offshore Drilling / ANWR
43		McCain		Oil Company profits and investment
44		Huckabee		Ethanol
45		Thompson		Ethanol
46		Romney		Farm Subsidies
47		Paul		Winning confidence of GOP voters
48		Huckabee		Winning confidence of GOP voters
49		McCain		Winning confidence of GOP voters
50		Romney		Winning confidence of GOP voters
51		Thompson		Winning confidence of GOP voters
52		Giuliani		Winning confidence of GOP voters
53		Hunter		Winning confidence of GOP voters
54		Brownback		Winning confidence of GOP voters
55		Tancredo		Winning confidence of GOP voters
56		Thompson		Social Security solvency
57		Tancredo		Trade negotiators in Bush Admin.
58		Romney		Health care
59		Paul		Unions
60		Huckabee		Unions
61		McCain		Unions
62		Romney		Unions
63		Thompson		Unions
64		Giuliani		Unions
65		Hunter		Unions
66		Brownback		Unions
67		Tancredo		Unions
68		McCain		GM/Ford product relevance
69		Thompson		Chrysler union walk out
70		Giuliani		Policing the internet
71		McCain		Policing the internet
72		Huckabee		SCHIP Veto
73		Romney		Bias against Arab American
74		Thompson		Dangers of a weak dollar
75		Giuliani		Foreign ownership of U.S. debt
76		Brownback		Ideal economic adviser
77		McCain		Bernanke interest rate cuts
78		Paul		Will you support GOP nominee?
79		Tancredo		Will you support GOP nominee?
80		Brownback		Will you support GOP nominee?
81		Hunter		Will you support GOP nominee?
82		Giuliani		London vs. NY as financial capital of the world
83		Romney		London vs. NY as financial capital of the world
84		Thompson		Prime Minister of Canada
85		Huckabee		Airline travel fix
86		McCain		Catching Bin Laden
87		Romney		Greatest long-term threat to U.S. economy
88		Brownback		Greatest long-term threat to U.S. economy
89		Giuliani		Third party option
90		Thompson		Do you regret waiting so long to enter race?

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Chris Matthews’ Canada question was designed to humiliate the one candidate the left fears. If he could expose Fred as an ignoramus, he figured he’d change the course of the election.

In 1999, candidate George Bush was asked by a reporter to name the leaders of Chechnya, Taiwan, India and Pakistan.

“Bush was only able to give a partial response to the query on the leader of Taiwan, referring to Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui simply as ‘Lee.’ He could not name the others.”

Quote from http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/11/05/bush.popquiz/

[xzins]

Good article. Good support for Thompson.

The anti-Thompson spin out of the media is clearly the policy coming out of New York.......Giuliani support central.

[brothers4thID]

And most of Hunter’s questions came early.

[MortMan]

How many questions tossed Fred’s way? Has that been added up?

Thanks in advance!

[samtheman]

I think the time is getting close when they should start applying a 5% rule to these debates.

You need 5% or more in the polls to be invited to the debate.

Otherwise, it’s a cattle-call.

[Eepsy]

I was leaning towards Fred, but after watching the debates I think I’m just going to go with whichever frontrunner picks Duncan Hunter for VP.