Chicago Debate League 2013/14 Core Files
AC Frontline: Politics Disadvantage [1/6] 315
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- 2AC Frontline: Politics Disadvantage [2/6] 316
- 2AC Frontline: Politics Disadvantage [3/6] 317
2AC Frontline: Politics Disadvantage [1/6] 3151) Non-Unique: Obama won’t dedicate political capital to the new rules, and he doesn’t have enough time to make them strong before they are reversed. GUARDIAN, 13 [Richard Schiffman; “President Obama is talking big on climate change, but will he act?” 6/25, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/25/obama-climate-change-speech-more-promises] Obama gave what might turn out to be his most substantive, not to mention controversial, address on climate change since he took office over four years ago. I say might turn out to be, because the devil, as they say, is in the details, and the details are not yet in. It's not clear, for example, how much of his diminishing stock of "political capital" Obama will be willing to spend on aggressively pushing for the climate relief package that he outlined today. It is also not clear whether the three years plus that remain in his soon-to-be lame duck presidency will be enough time to accomplish his ambitious goals, still less insure that they won't be reversed by the next resident of the White House. 2) No Link: Obama’s new rules do not go through Congress, so there is no risk of a fight over the plan having any spillover effect. Even if the plan causes massive controversy, there is no vote over climate regulations for Congress to backlash on. Either the regulations are inevitable, or they will fail for reasons the plan has nothing to do with. 2AC Frontline: Politics Disadvantage [2/6] 3163) No impact: Obama’s new rules do not change the status quo on climate change. WARA, 13 [Michael, law professor at Stanford University; “Seeking More Presidential Action, Less Rhetoric, on Warming”, 6/26, http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/seeking-more-obam-action-less-rhetoric-on-warming/] At this point, five years in, Obama should also be judged by his actions (tightened car emission standards; delayed power plant rules) rather than his words on climate change. This is not necessarily to criticize him, only to recognize that words are cheap and the president has limited political capital to spend on a variety of important priorities. Sixty percent of U.S. emissions come from two sectors — transportation and the power sector. I’ll focus on these. On transportation, the president rightly claims credit for accepting the California proposals on carbon pollution standards for cars, making them nationwide and expanding them. But these moves occurred when the businesses likely to be most strongly opposed were partly owned by the American taxpayer. But his new plan mostly talks about biofuels – about which don’t get me started (see here, here and here). Regarding the transport sector, the most hopeful new technologies we have involve electrification, not biofuels. The president doesn’t talk about that, perhaps for good reason but perhaps not. The truth is that if electric cars take off, a vehicle pollution problem just turns into a power plant pollution problem. So on to power plants, where because of a series of court decisions, and the text of the Clean Air Act, the president has the possibility of making big changes. Here, the plan says nothing concrete beyond setting some deadlines. * This is sort of like busy students coming into my office, having blown a deadline for an assignment, saying that this time is different and they’ll be sure to get it to me next week. In fact, the situation is exactly like that. The Obama Administration, is under a court imposed settlement to issue these standards, which they have violated; they have issued and then withdrawn draft rules for new power plants after strong pushback from the power sector; and EPA is about to get sued by environmental groups for violating the settlement. I had hoped for some real sense of substantive policy direction from the president — how he intends to use the Clean Air Act to deal with power plant carbon pollution. I hoped that Obama would lay down a clear marker. Instead, his relative lack of direction allows industry to rest easy with the current situation instead of being part of a push for congressional action on this important problem. 4) Non-Unique: A split congress and slow economy mean Republicans are able to kill off any agenda item Obama pushes. HIRSCH, 13 [Michael, chief correspondent for National Journal; “There’s No Such Thing as Political Capital”, 5/30, http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-such-thing-as-political-capital-20130207] Naturally, any president has practical and electoral limits. Does he have a majority in both chambers of Congress and a cohesive coalition behind him? Obama has neither at present. And unless a surge in the economy—at the moment, still stuck—or some other great victory gives him more momentum, it is inevitable that the closer Obama gets to the 2014 election, the less he will be able to get done. Going into the midterms, Republicans will increasingly avoid any concessions that make him (and the Democrats) stronger. 2AC Frontline: Politics Disadvantage [3/6] 3175) Link turn: The plan is popular and will boost Obama’s political capital. [Insert Plan-Specific Link Turn] 6) Political capital is a myth, there is no such thing as presidential momentum. HIRSCH, 13 [Michael, chief correspondent for National Journal; “There’s No Such Thing as Political Capital”, 5/30, http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-such-thing-as-political-capital-20130207] The real problem is that the idea of political capital—or mandates, or momentum—is so poorly defined that presidents and pundits often get it wrong. “Presidents usually over-estimate it,” says George Edwards, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University. “The best kind of political capital—some sense of an electoral mandate to do something—is very rare. It almost never happens. In 1964, maybe. And to some degree in 1980.” For that reason, political capital is a concept that misleads far more than it enlightens. It is distortionary. It conveys the idea that we know more than we really do about the ever-elusive concept of political power, and it discounts the way unforeseen events can suddenly change everything. Instead, it suggests, erroneously, that a political figure has a concrete amount of political capital to invest, just as someone might have real investment capital—that a particular leader can bank his gains, and the size of his account determines what he can do at any given moment in history. Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2011 2011 -> Voices of the Old Sea Norman Lewis 2011 -> Malevil Robert Merle 2011 -> The Elephant Keeper’s Children Peter Hoeg 2011 -> Jv packet •Mars Colonization Affirmative •Mars Colonization Negative 2011 -> Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) omb no. 1024-0018 2011 -> All America Looks Up to Virginia;” Virginia and the Declaration of Independence 2011 -> Rao bulletin 2011 -> Christopher Columbus was born between 25 August and 31 October 1451 in 2011 -> The Battle of Frenchtown (1855), Washington Territory: the Political and Demographic Context rev 9/4/11 2011 -> Seti aff •seti neg •Asteroids Aff Download 3.16 Mb. Share with your friends:
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