Has anyone here participated in a debate camp? I want to

[spindrifter]

know what the main strategies are:

prep the participate with substantive material and give him/her some stock phrases to recover with
if the topic is slipping out of control

pick areas to attack the opponent

pick areas to attack the other person--i.e., go after the opposite side's presidential nominee in the upcoming
VP debate

try to do re-runs of "successful moments"

[BlooInBloo]

1. I don't think political debating much resembles the high-school activity of the same name...

Where you're concerned with idiotic things like flowing and crap like that.

[SheilaT]

2. A couple of years ago I watched

a debate between an incumbent Congressman (Dennis Moore, D of Kansas) and his Republican challenger, Kris Kobach. Kobach had been a champion debater in college, and he tried using all of the tricks of college debating, and it was irritating and confusing. He spoke so incredibly fast (I gather that's how it's done in college) trying to get in so many points that it was almost impossible to understand him.

What you need, going into the debate, is a firm grasp of all of the issues that are likely to come up, and to know exactly what you are going to say. It's the standard talking points, and it's why, in my opinion, the debates don't really enlighten us as to how the candidates actually think or what they'll do once in office. And far too much is often made of trivialities that occur during the debate that have nothing to do with substance or again, what the candidate will actually do in office.