October 2004 Public Forum Debate

[The King of Red Lions]

RESOLVED: IN THE UNITED STATES, PUBLIC OPINION POLLS POSITIVELY AFFECT THE ELECTION PROCESS.


What do you think?

I'm back finally. I have SAT/ACT this month.

[stitchyrocks]

Not much room for a tug-of-war over definitions - thank God. Those kind of parameter battles quickly depleted the already limited time that PFD has.

There IS evidence in this topic, although you'll have to look for it rather hard. This resolution is going to come down to a lot of spin, I think, and how well (and how charismatically) you can present your side. As always, an EXTREMELY opinionated topic, easily the most subjective since the January/TOC topic about winning the war on terror. I'm going over to a high school today to do some coaching for a team going up to UPenn, and in my browsing I found that, particularly in this instance, a lot of universities have some good info.

If you need or want any help and you happen to catch me at a moment that I'm not scurrying around, my screenname is angeloncrack21, and my email is alex.wall@gmail.com

[Humchuckninny]

Not much room for a tug-of-war over definitions - thank God. Those kind of parameter battles quickly depleted the already limited time that PFD has.

Actually I disagree. There is going to be a huge debate over what "positively affecting the election process" is. Are we saying it encourages votes? Discourages votes? Encourages voting on different measures, aimed at different parts of the population? I bet you could come up with dozens of ways to define positive in this case, so just watch out for that.

[The King of Red Lions]

The key phrase is positively affect the election process. I will not be running anything that will be promoting democracy. I will be running arguments that focus on public policy.

[bobtheclown]

I know it's kind of late in the month, but I was running a practice debate and came up with the best AFF argument ever:

The resolution states that "public opinion polls positively affect the election process." There is no absolute in the resolution. Therefore, if there is one single positive effect of public opinion polls, the resolution is valid, and therefore should be affirmed.

What do you guys think? I will use it in two weeks.

[The King of Red Lions]

It's a good argument, but, convincing a lay judge that one example of positivity in the face of a barrage of negative evidence may be hard.

[bobtheclown]

Just in case you haven't heard yet, the NFL no longer requires lay judges in PFD.

[bobtheclown]

I just came back from the worst run tournament ever. We had a lot of lay judges in LD and a lot of experienced debators in PFD. Anyways, my partner and I debated AFF all four prelim rounds and won three of them. Obviously my contrived point wasn't too contrived, and only one of the four teams we went against addressed that point. We also used AFF in semis (we were the first team ever from my school to make it to semis) but lost because one of the judges was a grass-roots LDer, and we used a personal example in our case (stupid Jack-be-nimble the donkey!) SEMIS!!!!! YAY!!!! Only 3rd place, BUT THE FIRST 3RD PLACE ON OUR TEAM!!! That was an amazing day. I also made it to semis in extemp, but my speech was only 5:15 :( . What was even wierder was that the LD kid on my team who is really good and made it to quarters in 3 out ouf our 6 tourneys last year didnt break in anything. I am guaranteed 50 points for this tourney, and that is if I made it last place in extemp quarters and if I only get 1 point for each of my congress speeches. YAY!!!