Ehrlich,+Miranda

Former debater at the University of Minnesota, assistant coach at Wayzata High School, Coach of Madison East HS.

Couple of top-level comments: --Clarity/speaking is really important to me. Please be comprehensible on both tags and card text! I think the ideal rate of speech for a debate is at or below 300 words per minute. Fast talking should sound like regular talking sped up, not a robotic spreading machine. --Dropped arguments need a claim, warrant, and implication – “perm do both” without an explanation of how it solves the net benefit is not a winning argument --Impact calc is extremely important, but underutilized

Some specifics: Disads – The more specific, the better, but if politics is your A-strat, I’m a perfectly fine judge for you.

Counterplans – They're an essential part of negative strategy. Many are theoretically questionable, but affirmatives rarely push back on this. Substantive PICs are awesome – multi-actor international object fiat is the worst. Everything else is somewhere in between.

Kritiks – Can be a viable strategy in front of me, but they need to be applied specifically to all portions of the case. I would highly recommend extending case defense to bolster your K – the most common aff argument I vote on against K’s is “case outweighs”. I also like K affs that are topical, defend a small-ish impact, and critique disads – especially if you can point out why the disad is contrived and silly, which it likely is. Generic postmodern K’s, on the other hand – not my cup of tea, and I’m not familiar with the lit base. I will also say that on both the high school and college topics this year (military presence and surveillance) I'm not thrilled with the most popular K's because the link seems to be "you don't solve enough" rather than "you actively do something bad". If you can't figure out a way to phrase your link as offense and impact it, you will have a hard time winning my ballot.

Non-traditional – It is important to me that the aff explains how they solve the harms that are presented. If they fail to do this, I can be persuaded by presumption. I am skeptical of the "you don't get a perm in a method debate" argument, but could see myself voting for it if debated poorly by the other team or debated exceptionally well by the negative. Affs should be aware that I generally find a well-debated framework argument to be persuasive. When I vote against framework, it is usually because the aff convinces me that they either have a) out-teched the other team or b) that the neg has mishandled a fundamental thesis claim of the aff that interacts with framework. When I vote for framework, it is usually because the neg has both won some offense (usually with an internal link based on predictable limits) and also mitigated the case by explaining how framework can resolve it (such as T version of the aff) or through case-specific defense.

Theory – conditionality is almost certainly good, unless it is wayy excessive, like 7 counterplans. I do however think that if the neg makes performative contradictions – for example, reads a security K and then a terrorism impact on a disad – it can be justification for the aff to sever their reps/judge choice. I do not default to judge kick unless told to do so. Theory is nearly always a reason to reject the argument, not the team.