School Presidential Debate

I think you're treading on some pretty arrogant ground here, son, and this is coming from a Kerry supporter.

It would serve you well to learn a little more about what Bush actually stands for, and to be able to really prove those claims that Bush caused the economic catastrophe, the security nightmare, or whatever (for most of which it can be easily argued he was not responsible, if your opponent is at all good at debate).

If you're opponent is not that smart, yeah he'll come at you with the unpatriotic flip-flopper bit, but you are being way, way too dismissive of his abilities.

Just ask him to point out one evidence of flip-flopping. Everything he says will have a well-defined rebuttal.

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Original post by NoWhereMan In our social studies class, we are going to have a presidential debate the day before the election. I have been nominated as the democratic candidate to represent John Kerry. My opponent has been described by some as "a sicko conservative." We are both required to write a 3-4 minute opening speech, and then there will be questions from the class, and then any closing statements. I will have to write a very strong speech of course.

I helped with the planning when my college hosted a presidential debate last Wednesday, so I'm quite familiar with this sort of thing. I think I can help...

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My main plan of attack is to criticize the economy, the war in Iraq, the national security failure in 2001, and foreign relations. I feel that it will be fairly easy to make my point, after all nobody can deny facts and data.

Make sure you can point people to credible and independent sources. If you name even one source that can be accused of left-wing bias, your opponent will jump on it like a hungry squirrel on the last acorn on Earth. This will plant seeds of doubt in your audience's mind, and that is bad for you.

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My opponent will attack me by saying that Kerry is a flip-flopper, anti-American, and maybe some other Bush propaganda about what Kerry has voted on in the Senate. Most of these things have nothing to do with being president, but I still have to make a strong point. My question here is, what would be the best way to handle the "Kerry is a flip-flopper thing?" I know how to handle the "Kerry is an Vietnam hippie who turned against his friends thing."

Know the common flip-flop claims and know their proper contexts. Be on the lookout for the "87 billion" one, especially. While you rebut, it may also serve you well to point out Bush's flip-flops. The Kerry lady did well with this one during my school's debate. Remember reputable sources, though!

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Another point that he may bring up is, "Well, would you rather have Saddam in power?" That is a very hard thing to answer, well of nobody would. I would say something like this, "What was the basis of going to war in Iraq, to capture Saddam or to find weapons of mass destruction?" Then I will elaborate on the civilian / U.S. soldier deaths, and the war budget.

Well, Kerry himself has said that getting rid of Saddam was a good thing, so mention that. Then proceed as otherwise planned (hit Bush's failures and try to explain how Kerry would have done things differently, if possible). However, PLEASE DO NOT CITE FAHRENHEIT 9/11!

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Original post by The Frugal Gourmet If you're opponent is not that smart, yeah he'll come at you with the unpatriotic flip-flopper bit, but you are being way, way too dismissive of his abilities.

The guy who defended Bush in my school's debate was a very articulate and (I guess) intelligent honors student who had graduated the previous semester. Yet, he pulled the flip-flop stuff. The flip-flop line is just too tempting for Bush partisans to pass up, no matter how smart they are.

Well, I hope that I haven't steered you in the wrong direction here. Good luck to you, and try not to embarass the anti-Dubyas.

Say, ArchWizard's post made me think of something.

Go to "factcheck.org".

The site is awesome and a politically independent source. You could use the site to show that either candidate is completely full of it.

However, if you glean all your ammunition from there and he is unaware of it you will probably cream him in the debate. It's very likely you can anticipate some of his arguments from there.

I'd trick him into shooting himself in the foot on the flip-flopping issue.

Say something like:

Let's say you have a little brother, who loves candy. Your little brother often sneaks into your room and eats the chocolate you have sitting on your desk. There is an established pattern of that brother sneaking in, eating chocolate, and it is well documented.

Now one night only you and your little brother are at home, you leave your room to take a shower. When you return from the shower the chocolate bar is gone from the desk, there are wrappers on the floor, and the chocolate bar is obviously been eaten.

You would assume your little brother ate that chocolate right?

Would you punish that little brother in some form? Be it telling mother, or giving him a spanking, would you punish that brother for eating your chocolate?

Now what if you had a security camera, and after checking it, you saw it was clearly the family dog that ate the chocolate, and not your little brother.

Given the new information, would you continue to punish that little brother for doing something he clearly did not do?

You wouldn't ? So you admit to flip-flopping yourself?

do something like that.

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Original post by aegrimonia *Something aboot candy* do something like that.

...I don't follow you. All I read was "candy candy dog brother candy candy DESTROY REPUBLICAN*.

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Original post by aegrimonia I'd trick him into shooting himself in the foot on the flip-flopping issue. Say something like: Let's say you have a little brother, who loves candy. Your little brother often sneaks into your room and eats the chocolate you have sitting on your desk. There is an established pattern of that brother sneaking in, eating chocolate, and it is well documented. Now one night only you and your little brother are at home, you leave your room to take a shower. When you return from the shower the chocolate bar is gone from the desk, there are wrappers on the floor, and the chocolate bar is obviously been eaten. You would assume your little brother ate that chocolate right? Would you punish that little brother in some form? Be it telling mother, or giving him a spanking, would you punish that brother for eating your chocolate? Now what if you had a security camera, and after checking it, you saw it was clearly the family dog that ate the chocolate, and not your little brother. Given the new information, would you continue to punish that little brother for doing something he clearly did not do? You wouldn't ? So you admit to flip-flopping yourself? do something like that.

that is not flip flopping, flip flopping is when Kerry begins the political season with certain values, and then now closer he gets to elections he has different values. Religion is one, during the first presidential debate he said little about religion, and on the following ones, after being prepped by his political advisers became heavily religious, and made it a point to let everyone know where he stands, even if high ups in his religion don't agree with important values kerry holds, such as abortion. No matter what values you hold, you can count on the fact that Kerry will agree with you if it means you will vote for him.

I agree that your version of flip-flopping is how the bush administration defines it..

But what i disagree with is that as of now, the Bush administration have not been able to back their claims up.

They keep saying 'he did this, he did that', but i've yet to see any facts on it.

The biggest one they use is the war, he voted for the war, then flip-flopped against it.

But in the congressional records, it was clear Kerry was voting to give bush the POWER to go to war because the bush administration reassured everyone that the vote was ONLY to give them a bigger stick with which to threaten Iraq.

And we've heard it a zillion times, i don't need to explain it to you.

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Original post by DelphiCoder that is not flip flopping, flip flopping is when Kerry begins the political season with certain values, and then now closer he gets to elections he has different values. Religion is one, during the first presidential debate he said little about religion, and on the following ones, after being prepped by his political advisers became heavily religious, and made it a point to let everyone know where he stands, even if high ups in his religion don't agree with important values kerry holds, such as abortion. No matter what values you hold, you can count on the fact that Kerry will agree with you if it means you will vote for him.

Wow, I always thought that if you didn't take a stance on an issue, it meant you were free to take a stance on that issue later.

But you just called that flip-flopping.

A: "So, what religion are you?"
B: "Uh...I'm a Muslim."
C THE RETARD IN THE BACK: "YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU WERE A MUSLIM!"
A: "FLIP FLOP FLIP FLOP!"

...about like that? Seriously, this republican flip-flop bullshit is getting on my nerves, because everybody backs down when they're supposed to explain what it means.

Thank you all for the help, and I would never dream of citing Fahrenheit 9/11, there is one student who is a micheal moore freak, and no one takes him seriously. Anyway, in debates sometimes your opponent will set up bait, and if you take the bait then you fuel the fire to the point that it is all that the audience remembers. Do you know any bait tricks I can play on my not so intulectual opponent?

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Original post by NoWhereMan Thank you all for the help, and I would never dream of citing Fahrenheit 9/11, there is one student who is a micheal moore freak, and no one takes him seriously. Anyway, in debates sometimes your opponent will set up bait, and if you take the bait then you fuel the fire to the point that it is all that the audience remembers. Do you know any bait tricks I can play on my not so intulectual opponent?

Frugal was very much right in that you're taking a much-too-arrogant, holier-than-thou kind of tone. You need to expect a challenge, because both sides really believe what they're arguing, and I'm sure that the people in the audience are going to zone out whenever you talk.

If I were you, I'd be prepared to defend a not-so-aggressive position; it's much easier to defend against. When a Republican speaker is calm, articulate, and informed (read: Cheney), you have to be as well. Just look at the Edwards-Cheney debate to see what I mean -- Edwards was out of his element and excited, and Cheney obviously "smoked" him. However, when a speaker is aggrivated or angry, you WILL be able to defend against everything he says.

If he chooses the angry stance, expect plenty of name-calling, whether it's subtle or not-so-much ("flip-flopper" or "anti-American"/"weak"). Force him out of his element, and question everything he says that you know is unfounded. If he calls Kerry a flip-flopper, tell him to define flip flop. From there, follow up with what you know to be true, and how the most educated people base their stance on what they know, instead of what they thought they knew. If he says Kerry is weak or un-American, call him out on that: ask him what's so American about invading an innocent country when less than half the country supports war, even after he'd said that war would only be a "last resort". Make sure to ask if intentionally avoiding real military service, to instead fight overseas in the same kind of war is strength, and ask if that's the kind of president that the nation needs. If your opponent uses an angry stance, he won't be prepared to be defensive, and that will be an easy victory as long as you are very calm, don't sweat, don't slouch, and articulate.

If he goes with the calm stance, you're screwed gonna have to work a little, because the firmness he holds in his beliefs will communicate any propoganda into the listeners' minds. The most important part is to make sure that, above all things, if he tells a joke (or says something meant to be funny), you laugh. And you have to laugh well. Make it a vocal, open-mouthed laugh. A smirk makes you look like, uh...a douche, to be blunt. Agree with him if he tells a joke, and if he says something plainly ridiculous, don't even smirk. Don't show overconfidence, and make sure you're ready to calmly attack whatever he says that you know is untrue or ridiculous. If you can, make sure you have plenty of numbers and sources to back things up. Search through the lounge posts in the past few months if you REALLY need to, otherwise, don't even bother.

Also, in either case make sure to take thorough notes, but do NOT run into your time writing. If it's your turn to talk, you take all of that time, and do NOT anxiously scribble onto a notepad.

Sorry for the long post.

Perhaps the OP should consider a defense for this angle:

The Democratic Party at the top level of the Democratic National Committee, including John Kerry, has been involved, has been supporting and has been funding state efforts to intimidate; harass Nader's signature gatherers (NSG); and file dozens of phony lawsuits. NSGs faced Democratically-retained lawyers in Tallahassee before NSGs beat them at the Florida supreme court level last week. But it's going on in the close states, Pennsylvania, Ohio. Amazing saga, what happens when you put this system under stress.

And the bile and the mucous and all this stuff pops up. And basically, it's political bigotry by the Democratic Party against competition, against small parties, against independent candidates.

10 times more registered Democrats in Florida deserted Gore for Bush than deserted Gore for the Nader- LaDuke ticket, and that was true around the country. So you think the Democrats concentrate on that? Do you think they concentrate on actively registering nine million African-American voters. 90 percent whom vote Democrat?

No, they are a decadent party. It's decayed. It's surrounded by corporate consultants, corporate advisers, and loaded with corporate money. And it's got to be challenged. I hope progressive Democrats after the election will really purge that party from its corporate domination because it's just losing elections for the last 10 years to the worst of the Republicans, local, state, and national level.

EDIT: Yes, it was directed at the OP. I have changed the first line to reflect that.

[Edited by - flangazor on October 28, 2004 10:05:11 PM]

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Original post by flangazor Perhaps you should consider a defense for this angle: The Democratic Party at the top level of the Democratic National Committee, John Kerry, has been involved, has been supporting and has been funding state efforts to intimidate, harass Nader's signature gatherers, file dozens of phony lawsuits. They faced Democratically-retained lawyers in Tallahassee before we beat them at the Florida supreme court level last week. But it's going on in the close states, Pennsylvania, Ohio. Amazing saga, what happens when you put this system under stress. And the bile and the mucous and all this stuff pops up. And basically, it's political bigotry by the Democratic Party against competition, against small parties, against independent candidates. 10 times more registered Democrats in Florida deserted Gore for Bush than deserted Gore for the Nader- LaDuke ticket, and that was true around the country. So you think they concentrate on that? Do you think they concentrate on actively registering nine million African-American voters. 90 percent whom vote Democrat? No, this is a decadent party. It's decayed. It's surrounded by corporate consultants, corporate advisers, and loaded with corporate money. And it's got to be challenged. I hope progressive Democrats after the election will really purge that party from its corporate domination because it's just losing elections for the last 10 years to the worst of the Republicans, local, state, and national level.

Ha! The defence is so obvious, that I will let my chauffeur deliver it.

@flang:
...Could you, uh, repeat that? Because, while it seemed that you could almost back something in that "angle" up with facts, it seemed, to me, just dripping with propoganda and vague statements. If you want to make a statement in politics, you don't say it through insinuation, you don't say it through "hypnotic suggestion"; you SAY IT directly.

Your overuse of the words "we" and "they" didn't help your case any, either.

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The Democratic (this should be lowercase if you want to refer to John Kerry, otherwise I don't understand) Party at the top level of the Democratic National Committee, John Kerry, has been involved, has been supporting and has been funding state efforts to intimidate, harass Nader's signature gatherers, file dozens of phony lawsuits. They faced Democratically-retained lawyers in Tallahassee before we beat them at the Florida supreme court level last week. But it's going on in the close (?) states, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Amazing saga, what happens when you put this system under stress.

I'm sorry, that just doesn't cut it with me. I don't mean to be rude (although I'm sure I have been), and I apologize. I just don't understand...you know, anything in that post. It's really quite hard to counter something when I can't read it.

Oh wait...was that directed at the OP? Whoops, my bad.

EDIT:
^^--indicates that I realized that it was, in fact, directed at the OP, but meant to make a point. I got the OP's back.

[Edited by - Boku San on October 28, 2004 9:16:24 PM]