Tag Clowds.
Originally created to display the most heavily used tags (the things that label the story subject matter) at blogs, tag clowds can also be generated to display the most frequently used words in any chunk of text. You can see the tag clouds for each of the candidates from Thursday's debate at pollster.com.

You can create your own clowds with any text at Tag Crowd.

The New York Times has a transcript here which you can use for analysis or to plug into the Tag Crowd machine.

Iraq, Bush and Reagan.
The folks at TPM Cafe looked at the transcript and the tage clowds to arrive at the following observations:

1. Candidates uttered "Reagan" 20 times in the debate. "Bush" (not H.W.) was referred to once (by McCain).
   
2. "Iraq" was barely perceptable in the  Giuliani and Romney clowds but quite prominent in McCain's.

Joe Klein listened on the radio:

Here's what it sounded like: God God God God God God God Reagan Reagan Reagan Reagan Reagan Reagan God...and, oh by the way, Reagan.

He did not mention New York, New York, New York, crime, crime, New York. Giuliani's tag clowd shows "york" as the biggest word ("new") is not included since the widget helpfully excludes common words.

Question and answer time.
The Hotline helpfully counted the number of questions each candidate was asked and the total time they each spoke:

Candidate               Questions       Time
Mitt Romney                19        10 min 47 sec
Rudy Giuliani              17         8 min 19 sec
Sam Brownback              15         7 min 26 sec
Mike Huckabee              15         7 min 23 sec
Jim Gilmore                12         6 min 58 sec
Tom Tancredo               15         6 min 48 sec
Tommy Thompson             13         6 min 26 sec
Ron Paul                   13         6 min 20 sec
John McCain                16         6 min  7 sec
Duncan Hunter              12         5 min 53 sec

Romney's result is largely the fault of the moderators/format. He was the first candidate on the left and, unlike well moderated debates, this one always started with the leftmost candidate when they were going to ask all of the candidates the same question. Had any of those questions been difficult, that could have disadvantaged Romney.

McCain surely won the "most good press per minute of speaking" award. Perhaps because he also had more policy per minute than the others (but that is not a fact, just a surmise).

Demographics White men.
The debate had a different look than the Democratic one, on and off the stage:

At the debate, among the candidates, the attendees, even among the press, I was it. I was the black guy. When you are a stone's throw from Los Angeles proper and you can count the people of color you see on four fingers, you can't help but really feel your blackness.

Funniest. Liveblog. Ever.
Ana Marie Cox (the original Wonkette), has a real treat for you. She begins:

7:59PM: LIEBERMAN is there. At the right debate at least.

Read it and share your favorite lines (or actual serious thoughts) in the comments.