DEBATING POLITICS

Speaker: Maggie Berthiaume

• What is it?
o Particular outcome in political world will occur, plan changes the outcome, outcome post-plan bad
o Types of DAs
 Obama good
• Congress passing x now
• Obama needs PC to push
• Plan drains PC
• Can’t pass bill
 Obama bad
• Plan helps obama’s agenda
• Agenda bad = bad outcome
 Agenda DA
• Plan trades-off with something inside the agenda
 Elections DA
• Candidate will be elected
• Plan changes
• Not being elected bad
 Backlash
• Forces outcome in short term that causes president to do something
• Plan unpopular forces president to do something to distract
• Internal response – president signing plan makes him unpopular with x group, has to do
something to gain constituency back
 Diplomatic Capital
• Negotiations over plan sap diplomatic capital – state apt. can’t get things done
• Hurts ability to negotiate in other areas
o Internal link, link story
 Political capital – finite measurement of pres. ability to persuade others
 Clinton and CTBT – tried to pass, but couldn’t because he used up PC on other issues
 Seidenfeld, Lazinski – link to every policy costs PC
 Specificity of link
 Concession “olive branch” (obama bad da) – plan serves as an offering to x group and thus x
group will agree with obama agenda
 Internal link
• bipartisan – both parties pleased on, causes cooperative atmosphere and gets things done
(obama bad)
• partisan – plan is a wedge b/w parties, causes schism and agenda won’t be passed
 Focus – similar to PC, more about time – obama needs to focus/spend time on x thing, plan
distracts
• Have to answer fiat solves the link:
o Obama has shiny object syndrome
o Repercussions of plan require obama to focus on repairing them
o Requires ev about momentum – if bill gets derailed, it goes off the tracks
 Delay
• When plan passes, the aff gets delayed
• best when right before a house/senate recess, right before an election
• plan delays enough that obama can’t get it done before midterms
• people throw in the block, think about other things on president’s agenda
  Flip-flop
• President has to be consistent, if pres is seen flip flopping, it will hurt his PC
• Very good with democrat scenarios – withdrawal from Afghanistan a huge flip-flop b/c
deviates from his current strat
 Popularity
• If plan is popular, congress gets excited about passing things
• Winners win
 Party support
• Plan allows pres to please a party that is unhappy with him
• Lefty things allow obama to get more concessions
• Happy democrats = get things done (obama’s case)
• Pleasing GOP = less chance of a filibuster
 Winners Win
• Passing plan means you get capital – plan popular
• When you pass a plan, you get capital –signal obama is in control
• Ornstein
 Winners Lose
• When president wins, congress resists to distance themselves
 Losers Win
• Party will work harder to make sure he doesn’t lose again
 Losers Lose
• When pres loses, congress resists b/c pres looks weak
 Atrophy
• Obama has PC now, if he doesn’t use it he will be wasted
 Senators
• Senator key to passage, plan unpopular with the senator
• Standard Format
o X thing is passing now
o Plan unpopular
o Unpop policies cost PC
o Lack of pc =/= passage
o X not passing
o Issues with this:
 Policies are going to be unpopular/popular with certain people no matter what
 Saying something is unpopular is too broad a statement – plan unpopular with who
• Depth /focus on which group it is unpopular with
• How to make it better
o Focus on who the plan is unpopular with
o Obama good DA
 Stop thinking about whether plan is popular/ unpopular – research who it’s unpopular with
 Think about which people are likely to be angry if plan passes, which ones he’ll need to spend PC
on
 Which group is likely to defect
• Determine what is in the bill
• Focus on people that are on the fence – obama has to do work to persuade in favor of the
plan
 GOP = party of “no”
• Vast majority of them will say no no matter what
• Links based of GOP has no unq. They will vote no anyway
 Focus on small sections of moderates that could go either way
• Real ones that could change the outcome
o Obama bad DA
  Come constituency needs to be persuaded to vote x way
 Internal not external concession – want bill to move more to the right - good no pillover arg
 Cards with “external concessions” or “horse-trading” on unrelated issue (we trade an unrelated
issue to pass Plan)
• Choosing your DA
o Assess the uniqueness – imply some level of fight (brink)
o Look at impact
 Do you have cards, or time to cut them?
 Don’t forget to
 Possibilities for impact turns – HAVE ANSWERS
o Finding and selling the link story
 Who is important for this bill
• Use specifics to dominate the link and internal link
 How can we sell the story that plan is unpopular with these people
 X people important for the bill – plan unpopular with these people
 Tell your pltx DA like a story
• Don’t use debate jargon
• Sad time of when obama couldn’t pass x because he focused on plan
o Focus on warrants, specifics
• Research
o Google news
 Google alerts
o The Hill News
o First Read – references lots of sources
o Nate Silver – fivethirtyeight.com
 Unq. ev has lots of warrants, statistics
 Good elections predictions
o Focus on your bill, key senators
o Mine pltx link files from camps – tell you who plan is unpopular with
• Aff
o Have to have specific link turns
o Have to win the unq. debate
o Extend n/u, compare evidence, read new n/u in 1AR
o In 1AR, if you are crushed, group unq. debate, say unq. overwhlems the link
o If you don’t have issue-specific unq
o 2AC should have analytics, pay attention to your flow
 Capitalize on things they drop
o Not going to win everything
 Pick and choose arguments you’re winning
 1AR and 2AR need to communicate
 Answer turns-case!
 Case solves terminal impacts of DA
o Theory args lame – intrinsicness
o “say-no” – debate happening in congress means PC loss inevitable
 Recharacterize fiat
o Have the 2N cut the cards
•
• More debating tips
o At most, sell 2 link stories for the 2NR – 1 great link story o/w 2 small ones
o Why i/l and link o/w
o Use ev that resolves aff arguments
o Compare evidence
  Phrases like “insider”, “expert”, “non-partisan analysis” are great
 Shift to evidence that gives a non-partisan analysis
 Demonstrates that your ev is a part of the political climate
 Vote count – qualified, dismisses aff ev as partisan bickering, solid view of margin needed to
pass
 Momentum - evidence with predictions of future events, more examples of current events, the
better
 Qualifications – pltx ev not as qualified
• Link ev needs to be questioned
• Scrutinize link-turn ev – probably unqualified or biased
 Bipartisan trap
• Don’t take whole congress into account - focuses on like 3 people
 Lip circles
• Unq. ev just rhetoric put out to please constituents
o No your judges
 People who assess links first v. people who assess unq. first
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