Posted on 11/29/2007 9:16:44 PM PST by ellery
As U.S. News 's Liz Halloran reported earlier today, the heated CNN/YouTube Republican presidential debate last night proved particularly rough for Iowa caucus front-runner and former Gov. Mitt Romney, who was pushed repeatedly to clarify his stances on a number of fire-and-brimstone issues, like abortion.
His defensiveness showed. According to an (unscientific) U.S. News analysis of all eight candidates at the debate, Romney, over the course of the two-hour event, had the fastest average rate of speaking, as measured in words per minute.
Here's the tally, ranked in descending order from the night's fastest talker to the slowest (words per minute = wpm):
Mitt Romney: 233 wpm
Tom Tancredo: 226 wpm
Rudy Giuliani: 201 wpm
Mike Huckabee: 199 wpm
Duncan Hunter: 188 wpm
John McCain: 182 wpm
Ron Paul: 179 wpm
Fred Thompson: 177 wpm
To be fair, Romney was also the fastest talker at the October 21 debate in Orlando, with an average that night of 205 wpm (nearly 30 words per minute slower). That finding alone might be surprising, given Giuliani's reputation as a fast- and tough-talking New Yorker.
More tellingly, though, is the observation that Romney couldn't keep calm last night when faced with accusatory remarks. By our analysis, there was a clear statistical difference between Romney's rate of speaking when he was on the attack and in control of his answers, and, conversely, when he was fending off an attack himself. In the latter cases, his wpm spiked. For instance:
* Accused by Giuliani of hiring illegal immigrants at his mansion, Romney responded with apparent disbelief—"Are you suggesting, Mr. Mayor—because I think it is really kind of offensive..."—and covered a sizable 105 words in 25 seconds, for a rate of 250 wpm, above his average for the night.
* Forced to respond to a video of a younger Mitt Romney expressing support for abortion rights, Romney quickly pumped out 190 words in just over 45 seconds, a rate of 247 wpm.
* Pressed to explain his views on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, Romney, with visible frustration, ramped all the way up to 325 wpm to deliver this blitz of a line: "I look forward to hearing from the military exactly what they believe is the right way to have the right kind of cohesion and support in our troops and I listen to what they have to say."
Someone has way too much time on his hands.
-—Fred Thompson: 177 wpm-—
Half of which were “uh”.
Once again Mitt is proven smarter than the rest. After all, the responses were timed. :^)
Romney also won the waffling and deer-in-the headlights honors for the eveing for his answers to:
1. Abortion
2. Gays in the military
3. Whether the Bible is the word of God.
All in all, he had a terrible night.
:) I keep hearing that the 'toons and the Goreacle are smarter than everyone else, too. I just don't see it in any of these cases.
dunken hunter talks fast enough, and says the right things.....
That's exactly what this related article had to say ;; "Romney's Kerry Problem": http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1932642/posts
He needs that speed to express his support and opposition on every issue.
He has to talk fast because there is only a limited amount of time to correct all of Ghouliani's misinformation.
Both of these made me laugh. Maybe we should do a “he has to talk fast because...” thread just for fun.
Romney is a knee-jerk hyper panderer ... no surprise he won the WPM contest ...
Nice !
“Romney also won the waffling ....honors...”
Well sure. You have to talk fast if you’re going to give two viewpoints on every opinion.
Opps - I see you got there first! (Although I thought this was what they were talking about in the headline!)
My apolitical wife, after hearing Romney (”who is this guy?”) answer a couple of questions she said “why can’t this guy just answer the question?”
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