Anderson Cooper, the moderator of the CNN/YouTube Republican debate, made a point of telling the candidates at the start that they were expected to address the questions asked and not drift off onto other subjects. “Americans put a lot of time into submitting these questions. We think they deserve direct answers. ” In that spirit, I analyzed the candidates’ ability to give a straight answer to each question during the debate.

The goal is the same as it was when I analyzed the Republican candidates in their third debate and the Democrats in their previous debates. I don’t evaluate the merits of the candidates’ answers because that’s for you to decide.

I watched the debate this time and made a point of only including questions that came from video or Anderson Cooper. The candidates were supposed to limit their responses to 90 seconds when answering direct questions and 30 seconds for other responses. That got blown out of the water on the first question when Giuliani started slinging mud at Romney over the issue of illegal resident aliens.

The candidates ignored Cooper’s reminders that their time was up the entire night. It got so bad that at one point I was reminded of the school teacher taking roll call in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” as Cooper kept repeating the word “time” in monotone to candidates who just kept speaking for as long as possible. Giuliani even got booed early on when he just wouldn’t stop.I broke down the candidate’s responses into five categories and valued them accordingly:

• 4 points = clearly answered a direct question
• 3 points = clearly answered a question posed to another candidate
• 2 points = gave an empty answer to a direct question by discussing the subject without actually answering the question
• 1 point = gave an empty answer to a question posed to another candidate
• 0 points = Didn’t address the question subject at all

I didn’t give any points for clearly taking a position on a question that nobody asked or was asked by a candidate of another candidate.

The Straight Talk Award for being the one most likely to give a clear answer to a question goes to…

1. Ron Paul(100% likely)
2. Rudy Giuliani (87%)
3. Fred Thompson (64%)
4. Mitt Romney (60%)
5. John McCain & Duncan Hunter (56%)
6. Mike Huckabee (50%)
7. Tom Tancredo (33%)

Ron Paul claimed his straight talk crown for a second time and this is the very first time any candidate has answered every question they were asked with a clear answer. That appears impressive but he also was only asked half the questions that were directly asked of Giuliani who was also very good at providing direct answers. The details were sometimes lacking a bit though.

The DC Shuffle Award goes to Tom Tancredo. This award is for the candidate most likely to give an evasive answer as measured by the number of times a question was either avoided or was given an empty, hollow answer. Tancredo performed remarkably poorly considering he was given the least number of questions to answer. He was actually twice as likely to give an evasive answer than a straight one. This is a huge change from when he won the straight talk award in the last Republican debate I evaluated. Is this a sign of a change in strategy for him or just a really, really bad night?

The Penn & Teller Award goes to the one who is most likely to give the illusion of answering a question without actually doing so. I call them empty or hollow answers. And the winner is:

1. Tom Tancredo (50% likely)
2. Mike Huckabee (38%)
3. Thompson (36%)

The Buck Stops Here Award for never avoiding a question goes to Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, & Ron Paul. All the other candidates avoided one question except for McCain who dodged two questions. An example of side-stepping a question is when Tancredo and Hunetr were asked about existing legal guest worker programs but both of them spoke about illegal immigration instead. They avoided even the appearance of discussing legal guest worker programs.

The Put Up or Shut Up Award goes to Ron Paul. This award is for never giving an empty answer. Not an easy award to earn.

The Moderator’s Pet Award for being asked the most questions goes to:

1. Rudy Giuliani (14 questions)
2. Fred Thompson (11)
3. Mitt Romney (10)
4. Duncan Hunter & John McCain (9)
5. Mike Huckabee (8)
6. Ron Paul (7)
7. Tom Tancredo (6)

Anderson Cooper did a pretty good job of moderating but he kept getting ignored by the candidates when it came time for them to end their response. The debate actually ran 15 minutes longer than scheduled because of it. He did well at keeping the candidates focused on the actual question though. He threw in a dumb question at the end from a Yankee fan asking Giuliani why he rooted for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series which I left out of the analysis.

If you want to know more about any of the candidates, their websites are here.

The analysis metrics for this debate are here.