I recently tested this on one of my sites. Did not knew about the debate.
My results: second and even third link does metter for Google.

Although I have not done any specific testing, but I think all links count, irrespective of the anchor.

I have tested this for last 2 months and have concluded that google only attributes the first anchor text in the code with the target url. I will be publishing my findings in the near future at www.evisibility.com/blog

I believe that SEOMoz.org did a case study to figure this out. They arrived to the conclusion that the 1st is the one that matters.

Rand has some very bizarre linking theories that are contrary to what actually happens in the search engines.

If you put 10 outbound links on a page, the anchor text for the 3rd one may show up before the anchor text for the 1st one, but he reached the conclusion that only the 1st link counts.

This latest bit of nonsense was really not worth all the fuss.

imnotadoctor and myself have tested this and we can say with 100% certainty that our test conclusively proved that Google only takes the first anchor text. There are ways around this that will allow you to have multiple anchor texts attributed to the destination URL though. Again, we will be publishing our findings, which are more extensive than this, in the near future at evisibility.com/blog. We will also be presenting our findings in person at the San Diego Ad Club Interactive Marketing Day on June 11th.

To me, only ranking off the first anchor text is short sighted. If it's a matter of processing, that's one thing, but other links could be more meaningful to users. I have to think it's a combination, even if the first one is weighted higher.

Sorry guys. That dog won't hunt.