Carlotti,+Mike

Background: I debate four years at Cathedral Prep and was basically as active as you can get in terms of travel on the national circuit, including TOC and NDCA elims my senior year. Currently a Junior debater at Wake.

Policy Orientation/Ks: I was very policy-oriented (though not exclusively) in high school and I still am in college, but I remain completely open to most any arguments including criticisms, process counterplans, procedurals, etc. EDIT: That being said, I feel like I should forewarn people who plan on making the K a main part of your strategy - when in front of me, you are starting in a position in which your K alt is vague. All this means is that if you want to win your K, the 2NC better have a pretty concrete explanation of your alt, including things like who the agent is (judge, USFG, everyone?) what actions are taken (the means) and how that resolves the link (the ends). Tagline extensions and weak explanation along the lines of "specific intellectual, duuuude" will probably mean I treat your K as a non-unique DA.

Topicality: a well-argued T debate is always fun to judge. I default to competing interpretations and evaluate it on an offense/defense paradigm, however that is only my default and am easily persuaded to evaluate the debate otherwise as long as you win why I should. That being said, even though I default offense/defense I differ from many judges in that I do not believe in the "there is only a risk they don't meet" bullshit. I believe that meeting any interpretation is a yes/no question, and if the negative is not compelling enough for me to believe the affirmative doesn't meet I see no reason to reject the affirmative. From the negative I find arguments for context, grammar, and predictability FAR more compelling than limits and ground, and from the affirmative I often am most persuaded by affirmative ground, innovation/creativity, and critical thinking arguments. T is 99% likely a voting issue, but again I can always be persuaded otherwise.

Theory: I believe that theory is a reason to reject the argument not the team ALWAYS - there is rarely if ever a scenario in which I would be willing to reject a team for an argument they made. I think if conditionality is bad, it is a) a reason to stick the negative with the counterplan and b) if i reject the team, abuse must be proven. EDIT: I don't buy the distinction between 1 conditional CP and multiple - if conditionality is good because the status quo should always be an option/because the aff's burden is to prove the plan is a good idea, not that it is better than the CP, then multiple counterplans are equally legitimate.

In terms of what CPs I think are legit and not, the breakdown is fairly simple: 1) the neg gets FIAT, don't bother arguing otherwise, 2) the agent of the counterplan should be the same agent as the plan, which means I think external actors (IFIAT) and subactors (50 States, Federal branches that aren't the plan actor) are probably not legitimate, and 3) the counterplan should not include the entirety of the aff (consult/conditions CPs).

After all that being said, I will never reject an argument because of personal bias, even if the arguments I agree with are made. Please don't let my biases determine your pre-round strategy, just bear in mind that more in-depth coverage on theory may be required if the aff is engaged there.

Disads: I am obviously a fan. All I will say here is that risk assessment should be given as much focus as impact calculus; meaning you can do all the work you want explaining why your DA outweighs and turns case but if you are winning a very small risk of that DA it really doesn't matter. Affirmative teams take note of this: I am very persuaded by "large risk of case outweighs small risk of DA" despite neg impact calculus (though affs obviously need to invest ample time in impact calculus as well).

I do not think that offense is a must on disads. I don't know exactly why some judges in the debate community believe that no offense on a DA= a neg win, because I think that the majority of DAs in debate are quite contrived, at least in comparison to the aff, thus defensive presses on internal links and impact uniqueness are especially compelling to me. That being said, I always think offense helps the cause a great deal and it is strongly recommended you focus a bit of time on establishing offense against DAs. I find turns the case arguments as well as timeframe arguments compelling tie-breakers, and vice-versa for the aff.

Politics: In my heart of hearts I don't believe politics DAs are intrinsic. I go for this argument a lot myself, and it simply comes down to the logical conclusion that if I am a policymaker with enough power to envision/pass/endorse (the differences, to me, are semantic) the plan, then I can also do the same with whatever bill the DA presents. I am not compelled by "politics DAs are good" - to beat this argument, you must either a) prove the DA is, in fact, intrinsic (good luck), or b) provide a counter-interpretation for my role as judge/policymaker that would make your DA intrinsic. EDIT: on the poverty topic, i do find myself being SOMEWHAT sympathetic to the neg on this position, but I still think one of the above two approaches is the only way to answer this argument. Ironically, I am still probably 50/50 aff v neg on politics in terms of my voting record, so like counterplan theory, don't be dissuaded from reading politics - just be prepared to be engaged on the intrinsicness question.

Wanky arguments: stay away from these. E-Prime, Time Cube, Wipeout, etc. are not very compelling arguments to me. It's not to say I won't vote on them, but my threshold is as high as they come and your speaker points will suffer because of it. So, this is your warning. I just think these arguments dodge the question of the debate and/or are illogical decisions for a policymaker to consider, which moots the entire purpose for debate.

That's all I have to say, if anything is ambiguous or unclear just feel free to ask before the round I would be glad to specify.