James Hohmann: “There is a tactic in high school debate called ‘the spread.’ It’s when you throw out so many arguments that your opponent cannot possibly respond to all of them, especially with the limited time they have to speak. It’s especially effective when your arguments are just off the wall enough that the other side has not prepared responses ahead of time. Then, when you get a chance to respond to their refutation, you zero in on whatever they ‘dropped’ and hammer them for it, spinning the judges on why it is crucially important to the broader topic being debated.”
“It felt like Clinton was trying to do just that last night. Alas, this is not a high school debate tournament and the winner is not determined by points or on what competitive debaters refer to as ‘the flow.'”
