USF Debate 2010-2011
Gonzo
Politics Internal Links
1/11
POLITICS INTERNAL LINKS
Politics Internal Links ................................................................................................................................................................................ 1
Politics: Internal Link – Plan Costs Pol Cap .............................................................................................................................................. 2
Politics: AT: Public Turn ........................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Politics: AT: Lobbies Turn ........................................................................................................................................................................ 4
Politics: AT: Winners Win......................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Politics: AT: Olive Branch......................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Politics: AT: No Vote Switch .................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Politics: AT: Intrinsicness .......................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Politics: AT: Fiat Takes Out The Link ....................................................................................................................................................... 9
Politics: AT: Bottom of the Docket ......................................................................................................................................................... 10
Politics: AT: Politics Bad......................................................................................................................................................................... 11
All I Do Is WIN WIN WIN No Matter What!
USF Debate 2010-2011
Gonzo
Politics Internal Links
2/11
POLITICS: INTERNAL LINK – PLAN COSTS POL CAP
Missteps destroy confidence in Obama and gut his agenda
Nagourney, 1-20 [Adam, The New York Times, “How Long Will the Obama Honeymoon Last?”, <online>
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20web-nagourney.html]
And Mr. Obama’s ability to slow-walk some campaign promises will also be affected by how well he maintains his standing with the
American public and continues to project an air of command and competence. With a series of missteps upon assuming the presidency
in 1993, Bill Clinton was quick to squander what political capital he had, as became clear with his party’s disastrous showing in the
midterm elections of 1994. So far, Mr. Obama has managed to remain unscathed by any missteps he has made, but his ability to ask
for the American public’s patience depends in no small part on the public’s confidence in his competence and motives. Mr. Axelrod
said he thought that Mr. Obama and the country were in tune with one another on the problems he faces and what it will take to turn
things around. “What’s remarkable about the polls is that people are at once optimistic and realistic,” he said. “They have high hopes
for his presidency, and that he can help lead us out of the morass we are in — and they understand how deep the morass is. And that’s
a good position to be in.” Still, if this past few years have proved anything, it is that things move much more quickly in politics than
they ever have before; public opinions shift, events change, perceptions change. Even as Mr. McKinnon, the media adviser, argued
that Mr. Obama enjoyed a lot more running room than other presidents, his estimate of when the check might come due was probably
one that Mr. Axelrod would not like to hear.
Pushing controversial issues kills Obama’s political capital
Joe Weisenthal, 7-21-2009 http://www.businessinsider.com/another-bad-poll-for-obama-2009-7
The last 10 days have seen a spate of fresh polls all showing the same thing -- that the President's honeymoon period is coming to
an end, and that he doesn't have unlimited political capital. He is, after all, human, and despite the mindblowing ineptitude of the
Republican opposition, political warfare hurts. The bad polls are coming just as (or maybe because) the President is really digging
into the politically charged healthcare debate. Politico: Trust in President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies to identify the
right solutions to problems facing the country has dropped off significantly since March, according to a new Public Strategies
Inc./POLITICO poll. Just as Obama intensifies his efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and reach an agreement with Congress on
health care reform, the number of Americans who say they trust the president has fallen from 66 percent to 54 percent. At the same
time, the percentage of those who say they do not trust the president has jumped from 31 to 42. But the news is also bad for the
GOP. A series of high-profile affairs, the political suicide of Sarah Palin, and a broad display of sheer buffoonery at the
Sotomayor hearings ("Wait, just to clarify, have you now or have you ever used the term 'wise Latina'?") hasn't helped their brand.
So the President takes a hit, but they gain nothing.
The Prez must keep congress focused – the plan will hurt his OTHER agenda items
Edwards & Wood, 99 (George C. Edwards and B. Dan Wood – Professors of Political Science at Texas A&M, American Political Science Review, "Who
Influences Whom? The President, Congress, and the Media," June, vol. 93, no.2, JStor, JMP)
Examinations of presidential influence on the media's agenda have focused on the State of the Union message. Gilberg and his colleagues (1980) found that the
president was not able to influence media stories in the month following the 1978 address. Nearly a decade later, Wanta and his colleagues (1989) reviewed four studies
and found mixed results. In two instances the president influenced the media's agenda, but in two instances he did not. Even two studies of the same president, Ronald
Reagan, produced different results. Although he did not focus on the media, Cohen (1995) found that the president was able to influence the public's agenda through
State of the Union messages. An important aspect of a president's legislative strategy can be to influence Congress's agenda. If the president is not able to
focus congressional attention on his priority programs, these will become lost in the complex and overloaded legislative process.
Gaining congressional attention is also important because presidents and their staff can lobby effectively for only a few bills at a time.
Moreover, the president's political capital is inevitably limited, and it is sensible to spend it on the issues he cares about most. Thus, presidents try
hard to set Congress's agenda. The conventional wisdom of the president's success is captured in Neustadt's observation (1991, 8): "Congressmen need an agenda from
outside, something with high status to respond to or react against. What provides it better than the program of the president?" Kingdon (1995,23) adds that "the
president can single handedly set the agendas, not only of people in the executive branch, but also of people in Congress and outside the
government."
Enacting legislation takes political capital and trades off with other bills
ZELINSKY 98 Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University (Edward A, Harvard Law Review, 112 Harv. L. Rev. 379, December, l/n)
The legislative process is not costless; time and man-hours devoted to one piece of legislation are not available for others; by
expending political capital on one law , a legislator has less to expend on others; even routine legislation can absorb significant
amounts of legislative time, energy, and decisionmaking capacity . 136 Permanent legislation minimizes these decisionmaking costs
because, once passed, the law need not be renewed periodically but will remain in effect until the legislature moves affirmatively to
amend or repeal it. Permanent legislation also lowers political transaction costs for the recipients of public largesse because such
recipients are spared the need for active, annual participation in the legislative process, participation that is necessary if they instead
receive direct appropriations legislatively reviewed yearly.
All I Do Is WIN WIN WIN No Matter What!
USF Debate 2010-2011
Gonzo
Politics Internal Links
3/11
POLITICS: AT: PUBLIC TURN
The public has ABSOLUTELY no effect on votes in Congress
Gelman 9 (Andrew, professor of statistics and political science and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University,
11/14, http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/11/politicians-have-lot-of-leeway-in-how.html)
Matthew Yglesias remarks that, when staking out positions, congressmembers are not very strongly constrained by the
ideologies of their constituents. Wow, that was a lot of big words. What I meant to say was: Congressmembers and Senators can
pretty much vote how they want on most issues, whatever their constituents happen to believe. Not always, of course, but a
representative can take a much more liberal or conservative line than the voters in his or her district or state, and still do fine when
election time comes. Yglesias gives some examples from the U.S. Senate, and I just wanted to back him up by citing some research
from the House of Representatives. First, here's a graph (from chapter 9 of Red State, Blue State; the numbers are based on research
with Jonathan Katz) showing that, when running for reelection, it helps for a congressmember to be a moderate--but not by much:
Being a moderate is worth about 2% of the vote in a congressional election: it ain't nuthin, but it certainly is not a paramount concern
for most representatives. To look at this another way, here's a graph showing the members of the House of Representatives in 19931994: Representatives from more politically extreme districts tended themselves to be further to the right (if Republicans) or to the left
(if Democrats), but only slightly so, with a lot of exceptions. There's a lot of leeway on where politicians stand. (And, yes, many of
these Democrats did lose in 1994--but, pretty much, the ones that lost were those in marginal districts, not particularly those with
extremely liberal ideologies. By this I'm not trying to say the extreme liberals benefited from their ideology--as noted above, I estimate
that it hurt them by, on average, a couple percentage points of the vote--but that these couple percentage points didn't really matter
much; the partisanship of their districts was much more of the key factor in determining whether they were reelected.) More
discussion here, in the context of the notorious "median voter theorem." As I wrote earlier, I am sympathetic to the related point that it
can be a mistake to assume that politicians of your political party agree with you, deep down, on the issues, and that they're only
voting differently because of expedience, craven political calculation, or whatever. It's worth considering the hypothesis that lots of
Democratic politicians do not share the values and policy preferences of lots of Democratic voters, and similarly for the Republicans.
Given the diversity of public opinion, this really has to be true on some issues, and it very well might be true all over the place.
Another way of saying all this is: Incumbent congressmembers almost always win reelection. And, when they don't, they're often
losing as part of a national swing (as in the 1994 Republican sweep or the 2006/2008 Democratic shift). And when an incumbent does
lose unexpectedly, it can be for something unrelated to their votes (remember the "check kiting scandal" of 1992?).
All I Do Is WIN WIN WIN No Matter What!
USF Debate 2010-2011
Gonzo
Politics Internal Links
4/11
POLITICS: AT: LOBBIES TURN
1. The -x- lobby doesn’t care about negotiations – no reason why they’ll be inclined to help
2. Lobby impact is overrated – laundry list.
Insight on the News 3. [Sept 15 --lexis]
Do we really have the best Congress money can buy? Maybe not. Paul Burstein, a sociology professor at the University of Washington, looked into the matter and
concludes that "Contrary to popular belief and typical media portrayals, big campaign contributions and lobbying do not necessarily win the
political influence that determines votes in the U.S. Congress." Writing in the summer 2003 edition of Contexts, the magazine of the American
Sociological Association, Burstein says his research indicates votes are more often than not dictated by public opinion, ideology and party
affiliation. "The power of interest groups to get legislators to change their votes in the face of personal ideology and party commitments is real but very limited,"
Burstein maintains. And just why does it appear otherwise? The author says that part of the misconception is due to media focus on the egregious
actions of a few, and part is due to the individual perception that if government is not doing things "my way," then obviously it is a
tool of special interests. Burstein says his study merely is one of many showing that money and special interests have little influence on the shaping
of policy. This influence is limited by several factors, he says. For one thing, politicalaction-committee campaign contributions are not large compared
with campaign costs, so their clout in that regard is limited. For another, "there are so many lobbyists that most cannot gain access to
members of Congress, much less influence them." And lastly, "the number of members actually influenced by contributions and lobbying
is often too small to determine the outcome of key votes." Burstein analyzed key votes from 2002 in reaching his conclusions. Most followed party
affiliation. The major influence on voting, he concludes, is public opinion.
All I Do Is WIN WIN WIN No Matter What!
USF Debate 2010-2011
Gonzo
Politics Internal Links
5/11
POLITICS: AT: WINNERS WIN
1. Their generic turn doesn’t assume current political climate on the peace process – Obama is already going to go all in – no
time for a win, and the turn is non-unique anyway.
2. Empirically denied – Obama got the stimulus package through and didn’t get anything done for another year.
3. Even if they win the thesis of their argument, it doesn’t mean ANY win increases capital – Obama still can’t overload his
agenda, he has to pick his battles
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 1-31-2009 http://www.jsonline.com/news/usandworld/38762312.html
Sullivan says one lesson of early presidencies is that "speed is nowhere close as important as focus." He cites President Bill
Clinton's loss of focus on the economy in his first days in the White House. Burke says Jimmy Carter's early presidency suffered a
similar lack of focus. Obama is widely seen as striving to avoid such mistakes. Sullivan says the ability to focus on a limited set of
issues is one thing that sets the executive apart from the legislative branch and helps explain Bush's early success despite political
disadvantages. White House spokesman Burton, who had a book on his desk last week about FDR's first hundred days, says
"presidents who have been successful tend to be successful because they take on big challenges boldly and they surround
themselves with the most talented people they can find." Sullivan, a professor at the University of North Carolina, questions the
notion that big accomplishments have to come early. "The idea that you have a bank account of influence, it dwindles away over
time whether you use it or not, so you better use it or lose it - that's definitely false," he says. Presidents can rebuild their political
capital, he says, "which is why you want to hit the ground running smartly, rather than just hit the ground running."
4. Winners win is a myth – opposition can always spin it away
Stephen Collinson 8-17-2009, Agence France Presse – English, Obama's new politics on line in health showdown
Barack Obama's vow to quell "slash and burn" politics, which helped sweep him to the presidency, is facing a decisive test in the
angry echo-chamber imperiling his health reform drive. "Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a
politics of hope?" Obama asked in the 2004 Democratic convention speech which rocketed him into the public eye. Fast-forward
five years to the sound and fury of the health care debate, and that message is struggling to be heard above a cacophony of
negative advertisements and fulminating voters at lawmakers' town hall meetings. "These struggles have always boiled down to a
contest between hope and fear," President Obama said Saturday in Colorado, branding his critics as scaremongers. It seems
inevitable that Obama will be a changed president when he emerges from the tumult over his plans to offer health care to 46
million uninsured, cut costs for those who have policies and rein in insurance giants. A famous victory on health care, which
eluded previous Democratic presidents, would embolden Obama's change agenda and validate his core political creed and personal
brand. But should his plan end up in the graveyard of failed big-ticket presidential initiatives, tough questions will be asked. Some
will likely argue Obama's crusade for hope and change has been exposed as naive -- or "all hat and no cattle" as his foe-turned-ally
Hillary Clinton said in their bitter primary campaign. Should Congress pass a messy compromise, second guessers will question
Obama's strategy, and despite a string of early legislative wins, his political aura will dim. Obama makes no secret of his disdain
for buzzsaw spin tactics, but the unflinching attack politics of his Republican critics do seem to be framing the debate. "The
difficulty is, that style of politics, does not match up really well with the issue at stake," said Dante Scala, a political scientist at the
University of New Hampshire.
All I Do Is WIN WIN WIN No Matter What!
USF Debate 2010-2011
Gonzo
Politics Internal Links
6/11
POLITICS: AT: OLIVE BRANCH
1. Concessions result in voters’ unfavorably viewing failed results of compromises – kills agenda
Lincoln Mitchell - Assistant Professor in the Practice of International Politics, Columbia University – 12/15/ 2009 (“Keeping the
Wheels on the Obama Presidency”, The Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lincoln-mitchell/keeping-the-wheels-onthe_b_392416.html ty)
Obama has also failed to pass a single major piece of truly progressive legislation. This is most clear in the area of health care.
The willingness of the White House to swap the expansion of Medicare in exchange for Joe Lieberman's vote on cloture reveals
how far the administration has come from what many progressives hoped health care reform would look like. The White House
has compromised away a compromise, expanding Medicare, which was itself a compromise from the public option idea, which
was an early compromise away from a single payer approach. There is, of course, nothing axiomatically wrong with
compromise and pragmatism, but a presidency driven by compromise and pragmatism must be judged by the results it produces.
So far, in both foreign and domestic policy, Obama cannot really point to any concrete and positive results, only trends.
Politically, pragmatism without tangible results puts Obama in danger of backing himself into a corner. Swing voters will
increasingly, fairly or not, judge Obama on outcomes. If jobs do not come back and if success in Afghanistan continues to be
elusive, they will not evaluate him kindly. A president can survive this if he still has a strong political base, but for Obama this
base is in danger of eroding. Reports that African American members of Congress are increasingly dissatisfied with President
Obama suggest that this has already begun to happen.
2. Concessions don’t garner bipartisanship – better to fight for legislation
David Roberts - Writer for Grist – 3/31/2010 (“Democrats should stop trying to change politics with policy concessions”
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-03-30-post-truth-politics/)
Republicans have quite cannily figured out how to manipulate voters' heuristics. No matter what Democrats do or propose,
Republicans meet it with maximal, united opposition, criticizing it as socialism, tyranny, or appeasement. They've accurately
realized that all they have to do to render Democratic proposals controversial is refuse to support them. As a consequence, no
matter what Democrats do or propose, they'll have to deal with the optics of their proposals appearing partisan. We live in posttruth politics: a political culture in which politics (public opinion and media narratives) have become almost entirely
disconnected from policy (the substance of legislation). This obviously dims any hope of reasoned legislative compromise. But
in another way, it can be seen as liberating. If the political damage of maximal Republican opposition is a fixed quantity -- if
policy is orthogonal to politics -- then there is little point to policy compromises. They do not appreciably change the politics.
For Democrats shaping policy, this suggests a two-fold strategy. First, they should pull attention to issues and proposals where
the political ground is already favorable, from broad stuff like financial reform to narrow bills on jobs and energy. Second, on
those issues that are inevitably going to be controversial, aim for maximally effective policy and deal with the politics separately.
In post-truth politics, attempting to change perceptions by weakening policy is a category mistake. Remember, no matter what
shape a Democratic proposal takes -- a centrist health-care bill full of ideas Republicans supported just a year ago or a cap-andtrade system like the one first implemented under George H.W. Bush -- Republican opposition will be maximal. So: fight the
opposition on political grounds and concurrently craft the best, most effective policy possible. The political controversy around a
bill, whether it's over partisanship, back-room deals, or procedural maneuvers, is ephemeral. It will pass quickly. In the end, the
policy will be judged by its effects on voters' lives -- whether it solved the problem it was designed to solve.
All I Do Is WIN WIN WIN No Matter What!
USF Debate 2010-2011
Gonzo
Politics Internal Links
7/11
POLITICS: AT: NO VOTE SWITCH
Political capital spills over – 107th congress proves
LEE 05 The Rose Institute of State & Local Government – Claremont McKenna College – Presented at the Georgia Political
Science Association 2005 Conference
[Andrew, “Invest or Spend?:Political capital and Statements of Administration Policy in the First Term of the George W. Bush
Presidency,” http://a-s.clayton.edu/trachtenberg/2005%20Proceedings%20Lee.pdf]
The idea of investing political capital also supports the notion that the chief executive specializes in foreign and defense policy. The
president may increase his domestic capital by cooperating on domestic legislation and then spend it implementing foreign policies. In
executing foreign policy, the president will not issue SAPs on his own foreign policy. For example, if the president signs a treaty,
Congress may or may not ratify it, but there is no opportunity for veto. Therefore, the president’s use of foreign policy is a spend
maneuver, whereas his domestic policy is an invest maneuver. The 107th Congress, during which the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
began, supports this theory. President Bush may have spent his political capital towards executing those wars and attempted to invest
his capital by cooperating on domestic legislation.
Yes vote switching – no real impact to ideology
Bond & Fleisher, Professor in Political Science - Texas A&M & Professor in Political Science - Fordham 1996 (Jon R. and Richard
The President in Legislation) pg 54
In a previous study of presidential-congressional relations from Eisenhower to Ford, we found that ideological conflict between the
president and members of Congress was associated with lower support. In general, as ideological differences increase, the president
tends to lose support from members of both parties at about the same rate, although support from the opposition is lower at all levels
of ideological conflict (Bond and Fleisher 1980, 75). Thus ideological forces in Congress often cause the formation of bipartisan
coalitions to support or oppose the president's policy preferences. These ideological forces help explain why majority presidents have
only a limited advantage over minority presidents in building majority support for their positions in Congress. Majority presidents
inevitably experience defections of partisans who have ideologies in conflict with theirs. Minority presidents, on the other hand, can
frequently build working majorities composed of their partisan base and like-minded members of the opposition. While political
values shared between the president and members of Congress provide an important linkage source, the effects of ideology are limited
for several reasons. First, most members of Congress are pragmatic politicians who do not have views and preferences at the extremes
of a liberal-conservative continuum. Because the typical American voter is not strongly ideological, most representatives' electoral
self-interest is probably best served by avoiding ideological extremes. As noted above, ideology is a less important voting cue for
moderates than it is for ideological extremists (Kingdon 1981, 268). Second, many votes that may be important to the president do not
involve ideological issues. Distributive or "porkbarrel" programs, for example, typically do not produce ideological divisions. Even
conservatives who want to cut domestic spending and liberals who want to reduce defense spending work to protect domestic and
defense programs in their districts. Presidents who attempt to tamper with these programs are likely to find few friends in Congress, as
President Carter discovered when he opposed several water projects in 1977, and as President Reagan discovered when he vetoed the
highway bill in 1987. Finally, ideological voting blocs are relatively informal coalitions composed of individuals who have similar
values. The "conservative coalition" of Republicans and southern Democrats, for example, appears on certain votes and sometimes has
a significant influence on the outcome of floor votes (Shelley 1983; Brady and Bullock 1980; Manley 1973). But this coalition of
conservatives has no formal organization with elected leaders to serve as a communication and information center. Although there are
several ideologies.
All I Do Is WIN WIN WIN No Matter What!
USF Debate 2010-2011
Gonzo
Politics Internal Links
8/11
POLITICS: AT: INTRINSICNESS
Intrinsicness is a reason to reject the team –
a. Makes the aff conditional and turns them into a moving target – their no link kills neg gorund
b. Perm is not topical – this gives the aff unlimited fiat power – counterinterpretation – you get instrinsicness, but it
must be topical
c. Promotes argumentative irresponsibility – they don’t have to do research on the DA
d. Politics is good – key generic on a topic with few good disads and key for education in real world policy
All I Do Is WIN WIN WIN No Matter What!
USF Debate 2010-2011
Gonzo
Politics Internal Links
9/11
POLITICS: AT: FIAT TAKES OUT THE LINK
Our interpretation of fiat is that plan passes through normal means – this is that the plan goes through the legislative process,
gets voted on and then passes.
Their Interpretation of Fiat is bad for debate
1. Not real world and destroys education – Assuming legislation isn’t up for vote ignores the bill making process altogether
which eliminates the basis for debate
2. It’s abusive – Fiat means we must debate whether the plan should be done—we can’t debate that without examining what it
would take to pass the plan, like money. Their interpretation means we wouldn’t get things as basic as spending disads.
4. Unpredictable – The neg should be able to assume the aff will defend the political implications of the plan – that’s key to
clash
5. Voter for reasons above
All I Do Is WIN WIN WIN No Matter What!
USF Debate 2010-2011
Gonzo
Politics Internal Links
10/11
POLITICS: AT: BOTTOM OF THE DOCKET
The affirmative must defend immediate unconditional implementation of the plan
a. key to negative ground- every disad relies on a temporally sensitive uniqueness argument- delaying plan
implementation kills all negative ground
b. No logical limit- every alternative to immediacy is arbitrary, allowing this choice to occur in the 2AC compounds the
abuse- the affirmative gets infinite prep time to write the most strategic plan- allowing revisions after they have heard
our strategy unlimits
c. Non topical- should is the present tense
d. Takes out solvency- the bottom of the docket is not guaranteed to ever get addressed, vote negative on presumption
All I Do Is WIN WIN WIN No Matter What!
USF Debate 2010-2011
Gonzo
Politics Internal Links
11/11
POLITICS: AT: POLITICS BAD
Politics disads are good for debate
a. education- they are the only way to introduce current events and international affairs into stale domestic topics
b. encourages research- time sensitive uniqueness forces constant updates
c. Real world knowledge- most people won’t go into poverty law, all debaters will have the opportunity to vote and can
use the skills they learn from politics to make critical decisions about political affiliation
All I Do Is WIN WIN WIN No Matter What!