As Fred Thompson was on the stage participating in his first debate, Jon Henke was typing away at his computer, giving a minute-by-minute report on Thompson’s official campaign blog. Henke, who works for New Media Strategies, mixed humor, straight reporting and a bit of opposition research into his post, which has more than 150 comments. It’s refreshing to read because it’s written in a way that any voter can follow.

Mitt Romney’s team, on the other hand, took the opposite approach. The campaign’s Debate Central is practically an encyclopedia of information about Romney and his Republican opponents. It’s the kind of work you’d expect from communications director Matt Rhoades, who left his mark on the RNC for putting together the same kind of exhaustive reports. Although Romney’s Debate Central is probably a little too overwhelming for non-politicos, it’s nice to see a lot of video interspersed with the text.

It looks like Mike Huckabee’s campaign tried to “live blog” the debate, but wound up with only seven brief updates. This certainly falls far short of what you’d expect from someone who wants to be considered a frontrunner.

Speaking of frontrunners, Rudy Giuliani’s homepage features a video from Steve Forbes. I’ve also already received three “What They‚Äôre Saying ‚Ķ About Mayor Giuliani” e-mails from Katie Harbath at Giuliani HQ. While each campaign has made it a habit to release these snippets following the debates, I always know I can find out what other conservative bloggers are saying in the e-mails that Harbath puts together.

Patrick Hynes did the same with an e-mail about John McCain, although I can’t find it posted on McCain’s website. While I was snooping around, I did notice a large feature on McCain’s homepage directing visitors to “join the discussion” on his blog. But I was disappointed when I discovered just four comments on the “open forum” blog post.

So who’s doing the best job? For today’s debate, I’ll give Henke high marks for making things fun and Romney’s campaign credit for producing an incredible amount of research. The other campaigns should look to them as models.