Elections DA (ADI)

Arizona Debate Institute 2008 Fellows
Elections DA
Elections DA – Hingstman 20
Elections DA – Hingstman 20.............................................................................................. ..................1
Obama Good Shell................................................................................................................. ...............3
Obama Good Shell................................................................................................................. ...............4
Obama Bad Shell............................................................................................................. .....................5
Obama Bad Shell............................................................................................................. .....................6
Obama Bad Shell............................................................................................................. .....................7
Obama wins now....................................................................................................... ...........................8
Obama wins now....................................................................................................... ...........................9
Obama wins now..................................................................................................... ...........................10
McCain wins now...................................................................................................... ..........................11
McCain wins now...................................................................................................... ..........................12
McCain wins now...................................................................................................... ..........................13
Link – Subsidies Unpopular............................................................................................ .....................14
Link – Ethanol subsidies unpopular ..................................................................................... ...............15
Link – Ethanol subsidies unpopular...................................................................................... ...............16
Link Turn– Subsidies popular...................................................................................................... .........17
Link Turn – Ethanol Subsidies Popular............................................................................ .....................18
Link Turn – Ethanol Subsidies Popular............................................................................ .....................19
Milk Price Support Program Link.............................................................................. ...........................20
Ethanol Key to the Election.................................................................................................... .............21
Swing voters decide the election....................................................................................... .................21
Other Issues Key ................................................................................................................... .............22
Too early to call............................................................................................................................... ....23
Agriculture lobby extremely powerful................................................................................. ................24
Agriculture lobby controls the election................................................................... ............................25
Sugar lobby extremely powerful........................................................................................ .................26
Sugar lobby extremely powerful........................................................................................ .................27
AT: Agriculture lobby powerful.................................................................................... ........................28
Obama Bad – hardline on the Middle East............................................................ ..............................29
Obama Bad – Afghanistan [1/3].................................................................................... ......................30
Obama Bad – US/EU relations......................................................................................... ....................33
Obama Good – Global Warming.................................................................................... ......................34
Obama Good – Syria engagement............................................................................. .........................35
Obama Good – US/EU Relations...................................................................................... ....................36
Obama Good – US/Russia Relations......................................................................... ...........................37
1/52
Elections DA
McCain Bad – Iran Strike [1/2]........................................................................................................ .....38
Strikes Impacts................................................................................................................ ...................39
McCain Bad – LOST [1/3]............................................................................................................. ........40
McCain Bad – LOST [2/3]............................................................................................................. ........41
McCain Bad – LOST [3/3]............................................................................................................. ........42
McCain Bad – Global Gag Rule [1/2]............................................................................................... .....43
McCain Bad – Global Gag Rule [2/2]............................................................................................... .....44
McCain Bad – Bush Doctrine [1/2]................................................................................................. ......45
McCain Bad – Bush Doctrine [2/2]................................................................................................. ......46
McCain Bad – NK Talks.................................................................................................. ......................47
McCain Bad - Imperialism.......................................................................................... .........................48
McCain Bad – US Imperialism........................................................................................................... ...49
McCain Bad – Destroys the CIA......................................................................................... ..................50
McCain Bad – UN Credibility 1/2................................................................................................... .......51
McCain Bad – War with Russia.............................................................................. ..............................52
2/52
Elections DA
Obama Good Shell

Obama is going to win now
McNerney 07/21
(Tracey, “Obama leads McCain by Nine Points Among Registered Voters.” Harris Interactive)
With just six weeks to go until the Democrat and Republican Presidential conventions, the general election is almost officially
here. Results from a new Harris Poll show that: In a four way race, Barack Obama leads John McCain among registered voters
44 percent to 35 percent, while Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate and Ralph Nader each receive 2 percent. Sixteen percent of
registered voters are not sure who they will vote for yet;
(insert plan is popular)
McCain will lose unless Bush adopts popular policies
Lichtman 05
(Political Science Professor – American University, The Keys to the White House, p. x-xi)
Retrospectively, the Keys account for the results of every presidential election from 1860 through 1980, much longer than any
other prediction system. Prospectively, the Keys predicted well ahead of time the popular-vote winners of every presidential
election from 1984 through 2004. They called Vice President George H.W. Bush's victory in the spring of 1988 when he trailed
Mike Dukakis by nearly twenty points in the polls and was being written off by the pundits. The Vice President defied the
polls and the pundits, not because he discovered negative ads or refurbished his image, but because voters ratified the
performance of the Reagan administration--four years of prosperity, the defusing of the Cold War, and a scandal that faded
away. In 1992, George H.W. Bush lost his chance for a second term, as the Keys predicted, when a sour economy and lack of
domestic accomplishment tarnished his record as president. The Keys predicted George W. Bush's 2004 re-election in April of
2003, a year and a half before a contest that pollsters found too close to call right up to election eve. As a sitting president with
no prospective challenger in his own party or a serious third-party competitor, Bush's mixed record of accomplishment at home
and abroad was sufficient to anticipate in his victory in 2004. Likewise, although President Bush will not be on the ticket in
2008, the fate of his would-be successor in the Republican Party will depend upon the president's performance in his second
term. If the Bush administration fails to meet the domestic and foreign policy challenges of the next four years, voters will
dismiss the Republicans, regardless of the Democratic nominee. Moreover, according to the Keys, the Democrats will have
structural advantages in 2008 that they lacked in 2004. The Republicans will not be fielding a sitting president, which results in
the loss of Key 3 and will likely confront a bruising battle for their party's nomination which forfeits Key 2. Thus, two Keys
that the GOP held in 2004 are in jeopardy for 2008, making a Democratic victory likely that year, despite the setbacks at the
polls that Democrats have suffered thus far in the twenty-first century. Democrats, moreover, need not worry about battling for
their party's nomination; history shows that nomination struggles within the out-party do not subvert its chances to recapture
the White House. A vigorous challenging party usually has multiple presidential contenders, each of whom professes to have
the skills, personality, and policies needed to regain the White House. A spirited out-party contest for the presidential
nomination might even signify the vulnerability of the party in power, as candidates compete for what appears to be a
promising nomination. The greatest popular vote victory by a challenging party candidate in American history was achieved by
Republican Warren Harding in 1920 after a deadlocked convention nominated him as a compromise candidate on the tenth
ballot.
3/52
Elections DA
Obama Good Shell
Obama victory will solve multiple scenarios for global war
Muhammed 3-11
(Assistant Editor -- Final Call, http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_4444.shtml)
Professor Starks says there is still hope the country can be turned around. Sen. Obama and his campaign represents “that
hope in the sense that he is positive and offering policy alternatives” to the last 8 years of the Bush administration, he said.
With the world immersed in nearly global conflicts, Bob Stein, a professor of social sciences at Rice University, said
establishing peace would be the greatest challenge for the next president. “I think the challenges that the next president of the
United States will face in the pursuit of world peace is everything from the war in Iraq to the conflict in Afghanistan. The issue
of instability in Darfur and Africa. There are worldwide conflicts that are multi-ethnic and multi-cultural. There are no simple
solutions because these challenges are quite complex and the next president will be taking on something that no one has had to
handle their first day in office within the last 25 to 30 years,” Professor Stein told The Final Call. “Just trying to get out of Iraq
alone poses the biggest challenge for the Democrats. Weapons of mass destruction may have gotten us into the war but how to
get out is going to be difficult to execute. McCain has spoken on this. I think it will require more than just America to get out,
but instead will take a world community effort. America needs help from its allies to get out of that war. She can’t do it
alone. It’s an incredible complex situation the next president will face. World peace will be a great task to achieve.”
4/52
Elections DA
Obama Bad Shell
Polls prove McCain is gaining momentum and about to overtake Obama – Latin American voters
Phoenix Business Journal, August 1st, 2008

(Mike Sunnucks , “Polls show McCain-Obama tie as new ads question Obama's Latin America focus, persona”,
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2008/07/28/daily83.html)
Two new national polls show the presidential race between Arizona Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack
Obama tied. A Gallup poll conducted between July 29 and July 31 gives McCain and Obama each 44 percent. A
Rasmussen Reports poll conducted the same dates shows Obama with 47 percent ; McCain 46 percent. The tightness of
the presidential race differs from more generic polls which show Democrats with an advantage over Republicans
heading into November. McCain also faulted Obama Friday in a new advertisement for not mentioning any Latin
American countries or cities in his much celebrated speech in Berlin. Obama talked about international cooperation and
unity on key issues in the Berlin speech and listed off a number of global hot spots and key countries ranging from Iran
and the Sudan to Europe and China -- but not Latin America Voters of Mexican and other Hispanic descent are key to
the presidential election making up sizable voting blocs in battlegrounds such as Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New
Mexico.
McCain is firmly opposed to agricultural subsidies
The Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2008

Elizabeth Holmes, “McCain Rails Against Farm Subsidies, Nafta Opponents”
Sen. John McCain is continuing to rail against subsidies and opponents of the North American Free Trade Agreement
Monday during a speech to the National Restaurant Association in Chicago. While visiting an agriculture-laden state,
the unofficial Republican nominee plans to blast Congress for farm subsidies and pledge to strengthen trade agreements
around the globe if elected president. “The biggest obstacle” to opening American farmers up to global trade is “in the
Congress of the United States, in the billions of dollars in subsidies served up every five years to corporate farmers,”
McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery. He will accuse Congress of doling out money in the form of subsidies to
some of the “biggest and richest agribusiness corporations in America.” McCain said in the prepared remarks that the
subsidies have far-reaching effects, including distorting the price of food globally. As a result, “we hurt the world’s
poorest farmers in Africa and elsewhere,” McCain said. Along with exercising the presidential veto, McCain vowed to
end all agricultural tariffs and farm subsidies “not based on clear need.”
5/52
Elections DA
Obama Bad Shell

The farm lobby will backlash against Republicans if Bush reduces subsidies – they control the outcome of
the election
Weisman and Barrionuevo 6

(Steven R., Alexei, http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/26/business/trade.php, July 27)
Though farmers make up a small percentage of the work force in the developed countries participating in the talks, their
leverage is enormous, because of cultural and economic reasons. This year, with President George W. Bush and the
Republican Party facing likely setbacks in the election in November, neither Democrats nor Republicans can afford to
alienate farmers by agreeing to a trade deal that diminishes their subsidies and supports without offering gains in
markets overseas in return. There is also the farmers' ability to play on cultural and romantic feelings that many in these
countries have about people who work the land. The offer made by the chief European negotiator, Peter Mandelson, was
deemed "unacceptable" by leading French politicians even as it was derided by the United States as minimal.
"Agricultural is so emotional and so cultural for many nations, including ours," said John Engler, president of the
National Association of Manufacturers and former Republican governor of Michigan. "We were all agrarian societies
once upon a time. It leads to these enormously noncompetitive agriculture sectors that people are trying to protect." The
failure of the recent trade talks was hailed throughout the U.S. Congress this week. Leaders on both sides of the aisle
said in almost the same words that "no deal was better than a bad deal" in the current trade talks. In several states in the
American farm belt, Republicans are worried about losing votes and giving the Democrats an opening, so the Bush
administration could not afford politically to compromise on lowering tariffs and farm supports. Indeed, the political
situation is so fraught that some experts wonder why the administration scheduled a make- or-break session now. "This
has been badly handled," said Mickey Kantor, a former trade envoy and commerce secretary under President Bill
Clinton. "To have a trade negotiation at this point and try to get the Bush administration to make very difficult choices
which will affect a number of congressional districts three or four months before an election doesn't make sense."
6/52
Elections DA
Obama Bad Shell

Obama’s tax plan will plung the country into depression
Morris and McGann August 1st, 2008

(Dick and Eilen, Morris served as Bill Clinton's political consultant for twenty years, author of New York Times
bestsellers with Eileen McGann, “August is the Time to Take Obama Down”, FoxNews.com)
Oil drilling is an issue, but it does not provoke the fear that the McCain campaign needs to elicit to win. It's just an issue
disagreement with bad consequences for the nation. Obama's position on the issue is not a recipe for national disaster.
But his tax plans and their likely economic consequence are very much a plan for catastrophe. Doubling the tax in
invested capital, and ratcheting up the top tax bracket to an effective 60 percent, will plunge the nation into a real
depression. Not a recession, or a downturn, or a correction, or a slowdown...a depression. McCain needs to hammer this
point home again and again and again in his advertising. He has to put top level economists on television talking about
what the Obama tax program will mean to America. Obama is suspect as an ideological liberal, anyway. And nobody
thinks he has the experience to be a good president. So the potential to scare voters by accurately elaborating what his
tax plans will mean to the entire country — not just the rich on whom the burden will directly fall — is enormous.
When Obama says he will only tax the rich, its like saying he won't shut down the entire ship, just the engine room. If
McCain just talks about Obama's tax program in the abstract, most voters will shrug and note that the tax hikes won't
really apply to them. Only 2 percent of Americans earn more than $200,000 a year and only 6 percent make more than
$100,000. But if McCain explains the economic impact of Obama's tax proposals on all Americans, he will score points
and could score a knockout.
The impact is global nuclear war
Bearden 2000
[Tom, Ph.D., Nuclear Engineering]
Just prior to the terrible collapse of the World economy, with the crumbling well underway and rising, it is inevitable
that some of the weapons of mass destruction will be used by one or more nations on others. An interesting result then
—as all the old strategic studies used to show—is that everyone will fire everything as fast as possible against their
perceived enemies. The reason is simple: When the mass destruction weapons are unleashed at all, the only chance a
nation has to survive is to desperately try to destroy its perceived enemies before they destroy it. So there will erupt a
spasmodic unleashing of the long range missiles, nuclear arsenals, and biological warfare arsenals of the nations as they
feel the economic collapse, poverty, death, misery, etc. a bit earlier. The ensuing holocaust is certain to immediately
draw in the major nations also, and literally a hell on earth will result.
7/52
Elections DA
Obama wins now
Obama’s new ad is winning friend on both sides of the aisle – its an indirect Lugar endorsement
NBC News, August 1st 2008

(First Read, http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/08/01/1240064.aspx)
Yesterday, "Obama seized on a record oil company profit to argue that rival John McCain offers only tax breaks for Big
Oil and 'short-term gimmicks' to consumers struggling with soaring gasoline prices." In the latest issue of National
Journal, Kirk Victor notes how Obama has been able to use GOP Sen. Dick Lugar (R) in his ads. “Turn on a television
in a battleground state and chances are that you’ll see an ad featuring … Obama talking about his work with … Lugar to
stop the spread of nuclear weapons… Lugar has endorsed Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive GOP
presidential nominee, but he does not object to being mentioned in the Obama ad, which is airing in 18 states, including
Lugar’s own Indiana. ‘I’ve made no attempt to either suggest or censor ads run by Democratic candidates,’ Lugar said at
a press conference on U.S.-Pakistan relations on July 15. ‘I’ll simply say that the ad is accurate.’” More: “That a
Republican lawmaker would appear in a Democratic presidential ad is unusual, observed Darrell West of the Brookings
Institution. ‘Just being in an ad, even if you have not endorsed the individual, conveys a sense of bipartisanship. So it
does indirectly aid Obama, whether Lugar intended that or not,’ he noted.”
McCain can’t compete with Obama’s star power – he’ll win because he gives Americans what they want
to see
Svetkey August 1, 2008

(Benjamin, Entertainment Weekly, “Obama: Celebrity in Chief”, http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008/08/celebrity-
in-ch.html)
Argue with John McCain all you want about off-shore oil drilling and time tables for troop redeployment, but the
Republican candidate is indisputably correct about one issue: Barack Obama really is “the biggest celebrity in the
world.” McCain’s new attack ad (you know, the one casting Britney Spears and Paris Hilton as this election’s Willie
Horton) is right on target when it points out that Obama looks as much like a pop icon as the presumptive Democratic
nominee. Where McCain goes wrong, though, is mistaking this for a bad thing. Obama’s movie star style of
campaigning may well be what wins him the White House this November. Just look at the “optics” from Obama’s trip
overseas last month. There he is hovering over Iraq in a helicopter, flashing a Top Gun grin. There he is on a basketball
court in Kuwait sinking a three-pointer with the aplomb of a wonkier Michael Jordon. And there he is in Berlin,
rocking a crowd of 200,000 in Tiergarten park, with a speech almost as political as one of Bono's. Rock star. Matinee
idol. Sports hero. At times Obama has even resembled a fashion model — striding out of a jet in designer suit and
sunglasses, a duffle slung effortlessly over one shoulder. Is this a campaign stop or a Dolce&Gabbana ad? JFK may
have been the first American President to use television to his political advantage, Ronald Reagan may have been the
first to master the medium, but Obama is the first candidate to turn his campaign into a multi-media marketing
extravaganza akin to the launch of a blockbuster film. He's made himself more than a politician; he's a brand, complete
with logo (that red, white and blue "sunrise" symbol). McCain complains that his opponent is too much of a glamour
puss to be President—usually while doing a badly lit photo op in the dairy aisle of a Midwest supermarket. But Obama
is merely appropriating the pop cultural syntax of our time, speaking to voters in the visual language of our celebrity-
crazed, media-saturated, consumer-driven age. Sure it can be derided as shallow and trivial, but this is how you infiltrate
people’s head space in the 21st Century. It’s one of the reasons Obama is reaching voters who never paid much attention
to politics before (like all those kids snapping up Obama “superhero” T-shirts at Comic-Con last week). These days,
when more people read People than Newsweek, when some of our best friends are celebrities — when we know more
about Brad and Angelina’s kids than our neighbor’s and have a more intimate relationship with Oprah than with our
doctors — star power isn’t such a terrible thing to have if you happen to be running for President of the United States.
8/52
Elections DA
Obama wins now
Leads the polls
ABC News 07/23

(“Obama still leads McCain in presidential poll”)
Democrat Barack Obama has a six-point lead over Republican John McCain in the United States presidential race as a growing
percentage of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to a new poll. The NBC News/Wall
Street Journal poll says Senator Obama leads Senator McCain by 47 per cent to 41 per cent for the November 4 election,
unchanged from last month.
Popularity from overseas trip
Brimley 07/23
(Shawn, “Obama’s Trip: Nothing But Net,” Democracy Arsenal)
And today, a new poll shows that Obama is maintaining his 6-point lead over McCain. I think one can assume that the powerful
images of Obama speaking to an estimated 100,000 people tomorrow in Berlin will push those numbers even higher.
Third party candidates solidify Obama lead
Reuters 07/23
(“Obama leads McCain by 6 points: poll)
Democrat Barack Obama has a 6-point lead over Republican John McCain in the presidential race as a growing percentage of
Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released
on Wednesday. Obama leads McCain by 47 percent to 41 percent for the November 4 election, unchanged from last month. But
55 percent believed Obama, a 46-year-old first-term Illinois senator, would be the riskier choice for president, while 35 percent
said that of McCain, 71, a fourth-term Arizona senator, the poll said. But Obama's message of change may resonate with a
disgruntled electorate after eight years of a Republican-run White House. Only 13 percent of those polled believed the country
was headed in the right direction. That was the lowest percentage on this question in the NBC/Journal poll's history. The
sagging economy remains the public's top concern, but voters do not have much confidence in either candidate on that issue,
with 28 percent saying they had faith Obama could put it back on track, while 17 percent said that of McCain. Obama's lead
over McCain expands to 13 points when third-party candidates Ralph Nader and Bob Barr are included, with Obama at 48
percent, McCain at 35 percent, Nader at 5 percent and Barr at 2 percent, the poll said.
9/52
Elections DA
Obama wins now
McCain has no base – grassroots conservatives won’t work for him
Bozell 3-15
(Wash Post)
The conservative talk-show community? Don't mind them — they're irrelevant. This message from John McCain
surrogates and other members of the political class is filling the airwaves and op-ed pages. In the Wall Street Journal,
Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes recently wrote that McCain needn't worry that conservatives are
uncomfortable with his candidacy, because "while they love to grumble and grouse, conservatives tend to be loyal
Republicans who wind up voting for their party's candidate." In the same pages, novelist Mark Helprin, a former
adviser to Bob Dole's presidential campaign, savaged conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark
Levin for daring to speak out against McCain. "Rather than playing recklessly with electoral politics by sabotaging their
own party," he wrote, "each of these compulsive talkers might be a tad less self-righteous, look to the long run,
discipline himself, suck it up, and be a man." I know the conservative movement. I've been in the trenches fighting for
an alphabet soup of conservative causes for 30 years. I've raised hundreds of millions of dollars for it. And I earnestly
hope that McCain isn't listening to the advice he's getting from these folks. Their thinking betrays a fundamental
misreading of the conservative pulse in America today. Conservative leaders, particularly those in talk radio, cannot
and will not be silent. They will not betray their principles and their audiences. Tens of millions of activists turn to
them for guidance. These activists could be, and need to be, McCain's ground troops, but unless and until conservatives
believe him — and believe in him — they will not work for his election. McCain may have the Beltway crowd in his
corner, but grass-roots conservatives aren't sold. Yet through his surrogates, McCain is attacking these leaders.
This is beyond folly. It is political suicide.
McCain can’t convince evangelicals, who are key to his election
Sheinn 3-2
(Atlanta Journal Constitution)
Some conservatives' anger toward McCain lingers. A recent report from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
found that 78 percent of white, born-again Protestants voted for George W. Bush over Democrat John Kerry in 2004.
But, wrote John Green, Pew's senior fellow in religion and American politics, McCain "may have some trouble
achieving that level of support from white evangelicals given that a majority of them preferred other candidates
in the primaries." If the race is close, a drop in support from such a key component of the Republican base could be
damaging. Exit polls taken from the Georgia primary give McCain reason for concern. He lost badly to Huckabee, and
in some cases to third-place finisher Romney, among those who identified themselves as either somewhat conservative
or very conservative. Among Republican voters who said they chose a candidate who shares their values, McCain got
15 percent, compared with 51 percent for Huckabee and 31 percent for Romney.
10/52
Elections DA
McCain wins now
Obama’s Middle East trip gave McCain new momentum– polls prove he’s gaining
StarTribune July 31, 2008

StarTribune.com,“No bounce for Obama after trip, polls say”
Sen. Barack Obama got no lasting boost from his ballyhooed trip overseas last week, according to national and swing
state polls released Thursday. And Republican Sen. John McCain may have benefited from his Democratic rival's visit
to Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries, said Frank Newport, the Gallup Poll editor in chief. "McCain voters may have
been energized," he said. "They said they were paying more attention to the race." However, many experts warned not
to take seriously polls in the summers of presidential election years. Gallup's daily sampling of 2,682 registered voters
found Obama with a 45 to 44 percent lead over McCain on Monday through Wednesday, a narrower margin than
Obama had when he began his trip. New Quinnipiac Polling Institute surveys Thursday found that Obama's lead in
three key swing states has dropped. Obama leads McCain by 7 percentage points in Pennsylvania, down from 12 points
in June. His lead in Ohio and Florida is down to 2 points, which is within the margin of error. Last month, he led in
Ohio by 6 points and Florida by 4 points.
Playing the race card angered the voters Obama needs most – McCain is gaining
Erbe August 1st, 2008

Bonnie, US News & World Report, “Barack Obama and the Race Card: Tread Carefully”
While Obama's comments may not have been quite as horrific as Davis described them, they certainly play into charges
that the Illinois Democrat is not quite the race-neutral uniter he's been claiming to be. They are the kind of remarks that
are better not made. They are typical of Obama's loose, free-floating style, but when they appear in print, they can be
interpreted as off-putting. The kind of voters who are likely to be turned off by Obama's remarks are precisely those his
campaign should be targeting. A new Rasmussen Reports survey shows twice as many voters say they are undecided as
said they were four years ago: When given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain for President, 14% of
voters are uncommitted. That figure includes 6% who say they'd vote for some other candidate and 8% who are
undecided. But, while much has been made of John McCain's struggles with his party's conservative base, 33% of the
uncommitted voters are Democrats while only 19% are Republicans. Forty-eight percent (48%) are not affiliated with
either major political party. These results are from national telephone survey interviews conducted with 14,000 Likely
Voters during the two weeks ending July 24. The sample includes 2,028 uncommitted voters. If Senator Obama gives
any hint of racial divisiveness, he can send these uncommitted voters running in the opposite direction.
11/52
Elections DA
McCain wins now
Obama won’t win – McCain has better voter turnout
McNerney 07/21
(Tracey, “Obama leads McCain by Nine Points Among Registered Voters.” Harris Interactive)
John McCain is holding onto just slightly more of his base as just over three-quarters of Republicans (77%) say they
will vote for him versus just under three-quarters of Democrats (74%) who will vote for Barack Obama; and, -- Among
Independents, Obama has a 12-point lead (38% to 26%), but one-quarter of Independents (25%) are not sure, 4 percent
would vote for Bob Barr and 3 percent for Ralph Nader. These are some of the results of a Harris Poll of 2,690 U.S.
adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive(R) between July 3 and 11, 2008. Like all polls conducted well before an
election, this should not be read as a prediction, but rather as a snap shot of the presidential "horse race". Additional
results include: -- Half of Matures (those over 63) say they would vote for John McCain, while three in ten (29%) would
vote for Senator Obama, indicating that some of McCain's strongest support comes from this generation; -- Half (51%)
of the youngest generation or Echo Boomers (those aged 18-31) would vote for Barack Obama while just one-quarter
(24%) would vote for Senator McCain; -- Ninety percent of African Americans are voting for Senator Obama, as are six
in ten Hispanics (60%). Whites, however, are leaning towards Senator McCain over Senator Obama (40% versus 34%);
-- Over two in five men (42%) and women (43%) say they would vote for Senator Obama, while over one-third of men
(36%) and three in ten women (30%) would vote for Senator McCain. This suggests that the gender gap doesn't really
exist this year; and, -- Half of single women (51%) would vote for Senator Obama while just one-quarter (25%) would
vote for Senator McCain. Married women are more closely divided - 37 percent would vote for Obama and 36 percent
would vote for McCain. So What? While Americans are thinking of summer vacations and the beach, November 4th
may seem like eons away. However, in reality, the election is just 15 weeks from now. That means that everything from
this point on in time definitely matters. Regina Corso, Director of The Harris Poll, said, "Senator Obama's lead seems
solid, but there are some troubling spots to watch for in his campaign. First, Matures are solidly behind John McCain,
and this is a group that goes out and votes in the strongest numbers among all age groups. Further, the divide among
married women is also extremely close. With almost one-quarter of this group (22%) undecided, the candidate that can
win the lion's share of those undecided Americans can move these overall numbers."
McCain leads in polls – Iraq
Bash 07/22
(Dana, “With spotlight on Obama, McCain steps up attacks,” CNN)
McCain's campaign is doing what it can to keep Obama from using the overseas trip to burnish his foreign policy
credentials. As Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki discussed a general time frame for troop withdrawal on
Monday, McCain was quick to point to the surge as the reason for progress on the ground. "When you win wars, troops
come home -- and we are winning. And the fact is that if we had done what Sen. Obama wanted to do, we would have
lost, and we would have faced a wider war," McCain said Monday as he campaigned in Kennebunkport, Maine, with
former President George H.W. Bush. Watch McCain criticize Obama's trip McCain aides are trying to protect one of
the few areas where the GOP candidate does better in polls than Obama -- the ability to be commander in chief.
According to an ABC News/The Washington Post poll, 72 percent think McCain would be a good commander in chief,
while less than half -- 48 percent -- say Obama would.
12/52
Elections DA
McCain wins now
McCain is gaining ground against Obama – Negative attack ads
Alex Spillius, August 1st, 2008

(Telegraph.co.uk, “John McCain's 'bullet' leads the assault on Barack Obama”,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/johnmccain/2486268/John-McCains-bullet-leads-the-
assault-on-Barack-Obama.html)
Steve Schmidt, 38, is known as one of the most forceful figures among the elite of the Washington professional
campaigners. He learnt the destructive arts of his trade from Karl Rove, the architect of President George W. Bush's two
electoral victories, who gave him his nickname. Also once referred to as "human artillery" and affectionately called
"Sgt Schmidt" by Mr McCain, he took over the day to day running of the campaign last month and was quickly credited
with bringing much needed discipline. His arrival coincided with that of at least two other former Bush staff members.
He quickly sanctioned a series of negative advertisements, backed up by assertive, tightly focused remarks to the press,
targeting Mr Obama's personality and fame. The result is that the Illinois Democrat aiming to make history as the first
black US president has been on the defensive ever since returning from his triumphant world tour last weekend.
Negative attacks are risky but appear to be working, as Mr Obama has slipped in the polls. His lead on Mr McCain has
slipped to an average of 2.9 per cent, down from 4.7 per cent a week ago. An advertisement released earlier this week
by the McCain campaign mocked his popularity around the world by comparing him to the air-headed celebrities
Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, and questioning his readiness to lead the nation. Democratic strategists said it was a
classic Rove tactic of taking an opponent's positive and turning it into a negative.
13/52
Elections DA
Link – Subsidies Unpopular
There is a broad coalition spanning the political spectrum calling for an end to subsidies
Washington Post 2006

(“Powerful Interests Ally to Restructure Agriculture Subsidies”, December 22, Lexis)
There may be no better sign of the changing debate over the nation's farm subsidies: A Midwestern governor running for
president calls for cuts in a system that has steered hundreds of millions of dollars a year to his state. "I didn't get much
of a reaction from farmers," said Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D), "because deep down most of them know the system needs
to be changed." Politicians such as Vilsack have joined a host of interest groups from across the political spectrum that
are pressing for changes in government assistance to agriculture. They want the money moved from large farmers to
conservation, nutrition, rural development and energy research. Vilsack, for example, favors programs that improve
environmental practices on farms. Bread for the World, an anti-hunger organization, has brought religious leaders to
Washington to lobby for cuts in subsidies, which they argue can lead to a glut on world markets that hurts poor farmers
abroad. The Republican-leaning Club for Growth says subsidies stand in the way of a global trade deal that would help
U.S. business. A politically potent coalition of unsubsidized fruit and vegetable growers from California and Florida
want their share of the pie. Even the National Corn Growers Association, with 33,000 members, advocates an overhaul.
14/52
Elections DA
Link – Ethanol subsidies unpopular
Ethanol subsidies are unpopular – food demand
LeMay no date
“The cost of Environmentalism is very high!” http://lemay.ws/Papers/8415.htm
Supply shortages cannot be solved without exploration and development of alternative hydrocarbon power sources, and
demand will inexorably increase with world-wide population growth. Ethanol production will fall of its own weight
because food demand will cause ethanol to be uneconomic against petroleum sources as prices for corn go up, even with
subsidies. Food will take a higher priority, and we may see political pressure to increase subsidies which will be
unpopular.
Eliminating ethanol subsidies is popular
Istook 08
(Erest, Former Oklahoma Congressman, Heritage Foundation Distinguished Fellow, “Ethanol policy threatens to starve
the world,” 2/26 http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed022608c.cfm)
As a Purdue University study noted, "This leap in corn prices is leading to an emerging opposition to ethanol subsidies
on the part of animal agriculture, export markets and other corn users." Those groups have created a coalition to
spotlight the ever-widening costs of ethanol, including a website at http://www.balancedfoodandfuel.org/.
Substantial support for shift in ethanol policy
Martin 08
(Andrew, NY Times staff writer, “Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing,” 5/15,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/business/worldbusiness/15food.html?pagewanted=print)
Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he had come to realize that Congress made a mistake
in backing biofuels, not anticipating the impact on food costs. He said Congress needed to reconsider its policy, though
he acknowledged that would be difficult. “If there was a secret vote, there is a pretty large number of people who would
like to reassess what we are doing,” he said.
15/52
Elections DA
Link – Ethanol subsidies unpopular
Politicians shifting to oppose ethanol subsidies
Istook 08
(Erest, Former Oklahoma Congressman, Heritage Foundation Distinguished Fellow, “Ethanol policy threatens to starve
the world,” 2/26 http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed022608c.cfm)
Some in Congress are repenting of their recent fivefold increase in the ethanol subsidy. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.,
said he now realizes that the new law is a mistake, because Congress did not anticipate the impact on food costs.
Congress should reconsider the new law, he suggested.
Cutting ethanol subsidies is popular with meat, egg, and dairy lobbies
Leonard 2007
(Christopher, AP Business Writer, “AP Centerpiece: Ethanol boom and rising corn prices divide farm lobbyists”,
September 13th)
But the pain is more acute for corporations like Tyson Foods Inc., the nation's largest meat company. The Springdale,
Ark.-based company's stock fell 13 percent earlier this month when it lowered its profit projections for the year. Part of
Tyson's problem is higher grain prices the company said grain costs for its chicken feed shot up $113 million in the third
quarter of this year alone when compared to the year before. The American Meat Institute has taken heed. AMI
spokeswoman Janet Riley said the group is "absolutely" opposed to more ethanol mandates and will continue to lobby
against them. The AMI has joined dairy, egg and turkey lobbyists to fight any increase in ethanol mandates that could
divert yet more feed into fuel refineries. The coalition launched a Web site recently called "Balanced Food and Fuel."
The home page is filled with stories and editorials culled from media outlets around the county, spelling out the
seemingly dire consequences of growing demand for biofuel.
16/52
Elections DA
Link Turn– Subsidies popular
Cutting subsidies is unpopular with farming communities
Knight Ridder Tribune Business News. Mar 26, 2007

“EDITORIAL: End the Big Ag subsidies”. pg. 1
If you go into one of the countless small farming communities in Illinois and mention cutting farm subsidies, you might
find yourself facing the business end of a running combine. American farmers are the most efficient and productive
growers in the world. This competitive advantage will ensure that American agriculture remains at the top of the global
food chain, regardless of subsidy levels. However, since the New Deal, American farmers have also enjoyed a massive,
government-supplied, competitive advantage in the global agriculture market because Washington has subsidized them
out the ear. That advantage for the U.S. translates into a crippling disadvantage for millions of poor farmers around the
world. And, with regard to trade talks, it's the reason why things are All Quiet on the Doha Front.
17/52
Elections DA
Link Turn – Ethanol Subsidies Popular
Ethanol subsidies are popular – bipartisan backing
Istook 08
(Ernest, Former Oklahoma Congressman, Heritage Foundation Distinguished Fellow, “Ethanol: The political fuel,”
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed041808b.cfm)
Ethanol decisions have always been based mostly on politics, not economics. What began as a farm subsidy has been an
American success story – of political maneuvering. The money from taxpayer subsidies was plowed back into the hiring
of more lobbyists and clout in Washington, plus campaign contributions for friends. This enabled a push for larger
subsidies, which provided the means to hire more lobbyists, more clout and make larger contributions, and so forth.
Starting with incentives created in 1978 after the Arab oil embargo, the U.S. subsidy grew to $3.75 billion a year, until
last December's new energy law raised it fivefold to over $18 billion (51 cents a gallon for 36 billion gallons of
ethanol). The subsidy effort has been strongly bipartisan. Congressional leaders of both parties have gladly raked in
cash from the ethanol lobby. The primacy of Iowa's caucus for picking a president also cowed many candidates into
backing ethanol, lest they lose votes in that major corn-growing state. Until now, those who spoke against ethanol were
often accused of suspect motives themselves. The pro-ethanol Renewable Fuels Association expressed prompt outrage
at a speaker who told last week's International Oil Summit in Paris: Staple food crops such as soybeans, sugar and corn
are being produced not to feed humans but to fuel cars, trucks and now even airplanes. As a result, the price of food has
been soaring; for example, corn prices went from under $2 per bushel in 2005 to $6 in 2008 and rising. But despite the
ethanol boom, petroleum prices remain high and energy consumers are no more secure than they were before.... biofuel
production is not contributing positively to environmental protection, nor is it reducing global emissions of greenhouse
gases as anticipated. In fact, the opposite might be the case. Forests in many parts of the world, which play a major role
in reducing CO2 by acting as carbon sinks, are being cleared to produce biofuel crops, which have a far smaller capacity
to absorb carbon. Who said that? It was Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali Al-Naimi. But so long as ethanol requires a 51-
cents a gallon subsidy (which is $28 a barrel) just to compete with $113 a barrel oil, there's little prospect that the Saudis
are afraid of the competition. The ethanol lobby generates far more power in Washington than it does on the nation's
highways. Compared to Saudi oil, its energy production remains a drop in the barrel.
Ethanol subsidies are backed by the powerful farm lobby
Mongoven 2007
Bart, Stratfor, September 13, “The Biofuel Backlash”, http://www.stratfor.com/biofuel_backlash
In other words, the backlash against biofuels is in full swing. The critics, however, are running head on into the
powerful agricultural lobbies in the United States and Europe that so successfully championed the issue in the first
place. These advocates say that ethanol, biodiesel and other nonpetroleum-based transportation fuels reduce pollution,
help fight climate change and improve national security by reducing dependence on foreign oil. Though many
policymakers find these arguments compelling, the biofuels issue would not have achieved the political momentum it
has without the intense lobbying by the agricultural sector. In fact, the fate of the current wave of biofuel mandates and
the pace at which industrialized countries offer biofuels at the pumps will largely be determined by agriculture interests.
The implications are as strong and lasting for developing countries as for the industrialized countries involved.
Moreover, advancements in biofuel technology over the next decade or so could convert some of the current critics to
supporters
18/52
Elections DA
Link Turn – Ethanol Subsidies Popular
Plan is unpopular – Congress wants to please ethanol lobbies
Grunwald 08
(Michael, TIME Senior Correspondent, “The Clean Energy Scam,”
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1725975,00.html)
The best place to see this is America's biofuel mecca: Iowa. Last year fewer than 2% of U.S. gas stations offered
ethanol, and the country produced 7 billion gal. (26.5 billion L) of biofuel, which cost taxpayers at least $8 billion in
subsidies. But on Nov. 6, at a biodiesel plant in Newton, Iowa, Hillary Rodham Clinton unveiled an eye-popping plan
that would require all stations to offer ethanol by 2017 while mandating 60 billion gal. (227 billion L) by 2030. "This is
the fuel for a much brighter future!" she declared. Barack Obama immediately criticized her--not for proposing such an
expansive plan but for failing to support ethanol before she started trolling for votes in Iowa's caucuses. If biofuels are
the new dotcoms, Iowa is Silicon Valley, with 53,000 jobs and $1.8 billion in income dependent on the industry. The
state has so many ethanol distilleries under construction that it's poised to become a net importer of corn. That's why
biofuel-pandering has become virtually mandatory for presidential contenders. John McCain was the rare candidate who
vehemently opposed ethanol as an outrageous agribusiness boondoggle, which is why he skipped Iowa in 2000. But
McCain learned his lesson in time for this year's caucuses. By 2006 he was calling ethanol a "vital alternative energy
source." Members of Congress love biofuels too, not only because so many dream about future Iowa caucuses but also
because so few want to offend the farm lobby, the most powerful force behind biofuels on Capitol Hill. Ethanol isn't
about just Iowa or even the Midwest anymore. Plants are under construction in New York, Georgia, Oregon and Texas,
and the ethanol boom's effect on prices has helped lift farm incomes to record levels nationwide.
Ethanol lobby controls Congress
Moore 97
(Stephen, CATO Institute Senior Fellow, “Push Ethanol Off the Dole,” 7/10,
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6123)
Yet even after ethanol has siphoned $7 billion from the federal treasury, the mighty ethanol subsidies still flow. Why?
Ethanol’s survival has nothing to do with economics or the environment and everything to do with political muscle.
Almost 70 percent of ethanol is produced by America's premier agri-giant, Archer Daniels Midland. ADM, the self-
proclaimed "supermarket to the world," has spent a small fortune on farming Capitol Hill over the past 20 years.
Through programs like ethanol and sugar price supports, it has reaped a profitable harvest from taxpayers. In fact, an
estimated 40 percent of ADM’s profits come from government-subsidized products.
Ethanol lobby entrenches Congress
Istook 08
(Ernest, Heritage Foundation Distinguished Fellow, “Ethanol policy threatens to starve the world,” 2/26,
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed022608c.cfm)
Ending the subsidy is easier said than done, of course. As the New York Times has noted, the ethanol lobby is now "an
entrenched political force." Years of multi-billion dollar subsidies have turned a small group into a wealthy and effective
lobby on Capitol Hill. Washington should give an ear to some common sense instead. But expecting that to happen may
be just plain ... corny.
19/52
Elections DA
Milk Price Support Program Link
MPSP beneficiaries are concentrated in key election states like California
Bailey 2005
(Ken, associate professor of dairy markets and policy at The Pennsylvania State University, Feedstuffs, “Dairy programs
facing tough times.(Dairy Price Support Program)”, April 11th)
According to USDA, the major beneficiaries of DPSP are those states that produce the bulk of the nonfat dry milk in the
U.S. The data in Table 2 indicate which states accounted for the bulk of CCC purchases of nonfat dry milk under DPSP.
California alone averaged 50-60% of these purchases over the past five fiscal years. The western states together
accounted for around 90% of all CCC purchases of nonfat dry milk. The Federal Milk Marketing Orders and the
California State Order for milk determine what a plant must pay for milk ingredients that go into producing nonfat dry
milk (protein and lactose). The price support program places a floor on the wholesale price of nonfat dry milk (the sale
price for the plant' Hence, these three programs act in concert to fix a gross margin for western nonfat dry milk
processing plants. Without the price support program, wholesale prices for nonfat dry milk would be more volatile and
influenced by global prices. That would mean the gross margin for processors would no longer be fixed. This would
create greater price risk. If the margins are squeezed, those losses would likely be forwarded to local dairy producers.
One benefit of not having DPSP, however, would be that these large western powder plants would have an incentive to
make greater investments in more value-added protein processing (i.e., milk protein concentrates, casein, caseinate,
etc.).
20/52
Elections DA
Ethanol Key to the Election
Ethanol subsidies are key to the election
Istook 07
(Ernest, Former Oklahoma Congressman, Heritage Foundation Distinguished Fellow, “Ethanol policy – what a turkey,”
12/1, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=44840)
On the other hand, ethanol has a big and successful lobby. Having its champion state, Iowa, as the first place to hold a
presidential contest also discourages contenders from picking a fight against ethanol
Swing voters decide the election
Swing voters key to McCain’s election
MSNBC 3-5
The president has already said that McCain is a true conservative and pledged to campaign for him. White House political
officials acknowledge that Bush's unpopularity with moderates and independents -- the swing voters McCain would need
to win in November -- makes the embrace tricky. Better to do it early and get it over with. And Bush remains popular
with the Republican base, so the president can
21/52
Elections DA
Other Issues Key

Other issues affect elections:
(1) Economy
Fram 08
(Alan, “Poll: Economy top issue; energy worries grow most,” 7/23, mlive.com)
The economy is the nation's top concern by far, but anxiety about energy has grown more since spring than any other
issue while the focus on Iraq continues to fade, according to a poll released Wednesday. The findings by the Associated
Press-Ipsos poll provide the latest confirmation of how economic woes -- including job losses, rising inflation and the
ailing financial and housing markets -- are dominating voters' worries as this fall's presidential election approaches.
IHT August 2, 2008

International Herald Tribune, “Obama shifts on offshore oil drilling”
The rapid fire developments Friday capped a week of campaigning in which the two White House hopefuls sharpened
their attacks on each other, escalating the rhetoric and prompting each campaign to accuse the other of injecting race
into the presidential debate. Obama, who has campaigned on a platform of change, previously ridiculed a push by
Republicans to open offshore areas to oil exploration in a bid to bring down surging energy prices. The country's
economic woes have largely eclipsed other issues in the presidential race
(2) Health care
Borosage 08
(Robert L., President of the Institute for America’s Future, “Your Health Care May Decide The 2008 Election,” 6/22,
Huffington Post)
In this assessment, I suspect that one issue, seldom mentioned now, is going to matter a great deal by November. Iraq
will be big no doubt; the economy bigger. But health care may just be the pothole that cracks up McCain's Straight Talk
express. People worry a lot about affording health care. Workers accept lower wages with employers that offer health
care. They hang onto lousy jobs to keep their health care. Most labor negotiations and disputes center largely on the
costs of health care. On this issue, attention is paid over kitchen tables across the country.
(3) Foreign Policy – Middle East
Benn 08
(Aluf, “The Obama show lands in Israel,” 06/24, Salon.com)
As expected, Obama has said all the right things in terms of what the Israeli establishment wants to hear. Like any other
American politician, he repeated his commitment to Israel's security and its special relationship with the United States,
condemned terrorism, and pledged to prevent the Iranian nuclear threat. But while acknowledging his charm, his Israeli
interlocutors seem to sense that Obama is not proficient in the nitty-gritty of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and does
not expect any quick breakthrough toward peace. Clearly, he has more pressing issues on his foreign policy agenda;
Israel's problems are way down his list, after Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and the economy and energy reform back home
22/52
Elections DA
Too early to call
Experts say its too early to call – over half of all voters won’t even decide till after the conventions
VOA August 1, 2008

(Jim Malone, “Experts Say US Voters Withholding Judgment on Obama”, http://voanews.com/english/2008-08-01-
voa62.cfm)
With less than 100 days until the U.S. presidential election on November 4, public opinion polls show most Americans disapprove of the
job President Bush is doing and would generally prefer a Democrat to succeed him in the White House next year. But the polls also show that
the presumptive Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama, is only slightly ahead of his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain.
VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.Three months before Election Day, the presidential race between Democrat
Barack Obama and Republican John McCain appears to be close."The structure of the race has been remarkably stable all summer," said
Karlyn Bowman, who monitors U.S. public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "In Gallup's national daily tracking [poll] for
June and July, Obama has averaged a three percentage point lead over John McCain."But many experts say that three points
seems a small lead given polls that show Americans are weary of the Bush administration, increasingly concerned about the
economy and generally favor Democratic approaches on many issues.Quinnipiac University pollster Peter Brown says there is one main reason why
many voters seem to be holding off in deciding between candidates McCain and Obama."Candidly, I think this election is about
Senator Obama," he said. "And he has a threshold to cross in order to close the sale. He is ahead. We know that. A number of voters are not
sure yet whether they want to vote for him. They do not necessarily want to vote against him. In fact, voters want to elect a Democrat. They
are just not sure they want Barack Obama."The McCain campaign is doing what it can to raise questions about Obama's experience and leadership
capabilities. In effect, McCain is trying to define Obama for voters, and not in a positive way.It is a tactic that has been effective in recent presidential
elections. Democratic candidates Michael Dukakis in 1988 and John Kerry in 2004 were unable to overcome Republican depictions of them as so-
called tax and spend liberals from Massachusetts. Senator McCain has stepped up his attacks on Senator Obama in recent days on a range of issues,
from his readiness to be commander in chief to his stand on tax cuts and energy prices."Senator Obama says he is going to change Washington, but his
solution is to simply make government bigger and raise your taxes to pay for it," he said. "We have been doing that for years, my friends, and it has
not worked."Polls show voters generally prefer Obama to handle the weakened U.S. economy, but place more trust in McCain to handle the war in
Iraq and national security in general."The question of whether Obama is a suitable commander-in-chief is one which I think
voters will continue to mull over the course of the campaign," said Michael Barone, a Washington-based political analyst and author.
"He is clearly at a disadvantage to John McCain on this dimension at the moment."For his part, Senator Obama is trying to depict Senator McCain as
someone who would continue the policies of President Bush, mindful of public opinion surveys that strongly suggest Americans are looking for
change this election year.In recent speeches, Obama has become more forceful in rejecting McCain's attacks and a television ad that compares
Obama's celebrity status with pop culture icons Britney Spears and Paris Hilton."They know their [Republican] ideas are used up, he said. "That is
why they are spending all their time talking about me. And that is why they are spending all their time trying to convince you that I am a risky choice.
But the real risk is doing the same thing."Obama and his supporters had hoped his recent trip to the Middle East and Europe would bolster his
credentials in foreign policy and national security issues.But Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown says that so far, there is little evidence to
suggest that Obama got much of a public relations boost, or bounce, out of his trip. Senator Obama had a good trip by all
accounts to the Middle East and Europe," he said. "He met with leaders. They said nice things about him. He drew a huge crowd in Berlin. But he
may have been making friends in Berlin, Germany, but he may not be doing as well in Berlin, New Hampshire.To many experts, the 2008 race is
starting to look like the election of 1980 between President Jimmy Carter and his Republican challenger Ronald Reagan.Analyst Norman Ornstein
says like this year, voters were in a sour mood in 1980 and looking for change, but unsure about putting Reagan in the White House."And I believe
fundamentally that in 1980, the election was all about Ronald Reagan," he said. "People did not want another four years of Jimmy Carter. But they
were not clear or comfortable for much of the way with whether Reagan got over the bar of acceptability to be commander in chief and president of
the United States."Could 2008 be a repeat of 1980? Public opinion analyst Karlyn Bowman says we should have a better idea after the
major party political conventions in late August and early September."The last time we had an open contest, in 2000,
around 60 percent of those surveyed by the University of Michigan said that they made up their minds at [during] the
convention or after it," she said. "Of the candidate's supporters, one quarter still say that they could change their minds.
So stay tuned."Experts do seem to agree that Obama does have one advantage over McCain at the moment - Democrats
seem much more energized to turn out and vote this year than Republicans.
23/52
Elections DA
Agriculture lobby extremely powerful
The Agricultural lobby is extremely powerful – they have the funding and connections to get their way,
regardless of Congress and the president
AP March 27, 2008

Lauren Etter, “Farm lobby beats back assault on subsidies”, Lexis
A little more than a year ago, the stars appeared to be aligned for significant changes to the complex piece of legislation
known as the farm bill, which allots billions of dollars to farmers and landowners to help stabilize grain prices, make
products more competitive abroad and provide a plentiful food supply. President Bush wanted to cut subsidies.
California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who had backed a high-profile effort to reshape the system in 2002, had become House
Speaker. And a broad coalition of advocacy groups was assembling to press lawmakers. But now serious reform is
likely to be left behind like corn husks flung from a combine. As Congress tries to finish writing the new farm bill, the
final tab is likely to be larger than the 2002 bill, which totaled more than $260 billion. How did it happen? Influential
interest groups which had toyed with supporting changes cut deals to get their own piece of the action. Lawmakers who
supported an overhaul peeled off as the debate moved into the election year. Historical alliances between rural and
urban lawmakers proved difficult to untie. The agribusiness industry plowed more than $80 million into lobbying last
year, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks spending on lobbying. Much of that was
focused on the farm bill. "We got rolled," says Rep. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who worked closely with Rep.
Kind. "The agriculture community circled the wagons."
The agricultural lobby has consistently gotten their way for decades
Washington Post 2006

(“Powerful Interests Ally to Restructure Agriculture Subsidies”, December 22, Lexis)
The farm bloc is an efficient, tightknit club of farmers, rural banks, insurance companies, real estate operators and
tractor dealers. Many of its Washington lobbyists are former lawmakers or congressional aides. Harnessed to dozens of
grass-roots groups, such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Cotton Council and the USA Rice
Federation, farm-state lawmakers -- the "aggies," as they call themselves -- fight with the fervor of the embattled.
About 1.2 million farmers and farmland owners got $15 billion in income support or price guarantees in 2005,
according to a Washington Post analysis of Agriculture Department payment records. The benefits are heavily tilted to
large commercial farmers growing a few row crops in a handful of states. But the money also is widely distributed to a
middle group of more than 130,000 farms, each receiving $25,000 to $100,000. The federal dollars ripple through local
economies, adding to purchasing power at stores and businesses -- and creating a political constituency for the
programs. The farm bloc, says former congressman Cal M. Dooley (D-Calif.), now an executive with a food industry
trade group, is "committed and focused." Ever since subsidies began in the New Deal, Farm Belt politicians from the
Dakotas to the Gulf of Mexico have worked to expand the payments. They have repeatedly thwarted efforts to scale
subsidies back by trading political favors, manipulating the USDA or strong-arming opponents.
24/52
Elections DA
Agriculture lobby controls the election
The agricultural lobby is backed by an extremely large voting block – 6 million Americans
AP March 27, 2008

Lauren Etter, “Farm lobby beats back assault on subsidies”, Lexis
The farm lobby already was fighting back. Led by the American Farm Bureau Federation, with more than six million
members nationwide, the pro-subsidy force includes trade associations representing farmers of corn, wheat, cotton,
soybeans, sugar, rice and peanuts. Many of these groups have their own lobbyists and entire teams devoted to farm-bill
strategy. Equally important are the thousands of smaller farmers who take time off to travel to Capitol Hill to lobby.
Through the spring of 2007, roughly 3,000 Farm Bureau members came to Washington to lobby lawmakers as part of a
well-organized "fly in." The farmers found receptive ears on the House and Senate agriculture committees that write the
farm bill.
25/52
Elections DA
Sugar lobby extremely powerful
The sugar lobby has control over lawmakers – financial contributions and political support
Morgan 2007
(Dan, contract writer for The Washington Post and a fellow with the German Marshall Fund, a nonpartisan public policy
institution, The Washington Post “Sugar Industry Expands Influence; Donations Spread Beyond Farm Areas”, November
3rd, Lexis)
When U.S. sugar farmers needed help this summer defending a $1 billion, 10-year subsidy plan in a new House farm
bill, they found it in some surprising places. Among the 282 lawmakers siding with Midwest and Gulf Coast growers
on a key vote was Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), who represents Queens and Manhattan's East Side. The only
sugar refinery in the New York area is well outside her district. Four days after she voted against a measure that would
have derailed the new subsidy plan, Maloney hosted a fundraising event at Bullfeathers restaurant on Capitol Hill that
netted $9,500 in contributions from sugar growers and refiners, according to Federal Election Commission records and
Maloney's election attorney, Andrew Tulloch. Tulloch called the timing of the July 31 fundraiser -- dubbed a "sugar
breakfast" on the campaign finance report of one group -- a "pure coincidence." The House sugar vote illustrates the
hold that agricultural interests maintain on farm policy even as the number of full-time commercial farmers has shrunk
to a few hundred thousand. Sugar groups have used campaign cash and far-reaching alliances with labor unions and
politicians to expand their influence far beyond the 15 states and few dozen congressional districts where sugar is grown
by fewer than 6,000 farmers. Along with Maloney, a raft of other Eastern lawmakers voted against eliminating the
sugar provisions. All eight House members from Maryland, home to a Domino Sugar plant in Baltimore owned by the
huge sugar concern Florida Crystals, voted sugar's cause. Four of them, and both Maryland senators, have received
political contributions from Domino PAC. Other recent Democratic recipients in the House include West Virginia's Alan
B. Mollohan, Pennsylvania's Chris Carney and Maine's Michael H. Michaud. So far this year, nine sugar farm or
refinery groups have made more than 900 separate contributions totaling nearly $1.5 million to candidates, parties and
political funds, according to federal election records and CQ MoneyLine. American Crystal Sugar Co., a Minnesota-
based sugar-beet cooperative with 3,000 members, has made 317 contributions totaling $819,000. In July alone, its
political fund contributed more than $70,000 to 26 House members, 24 of whom sided with it on the July 27 sugar vote.
"When you take on Big Sugar, you take on a huge political money operation," said Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), a co-
sponsor of the amendment that drew the sugar industry's ire.
26/52
Elections DA
Sugar lobby extremely powerful
The sugar lobby has complete control over the Democratic Congress
Morgan 2007
(Dan, contract writer for The Washington Post and a fellow with the German Marshall Fund, a nonpartisan public policy
institution, The Washington Post “Sugar Industry Expands Influence; Donations Spread Beyond Farm Areas”,
November 3rd, Lexis)
But opponents have repeatedly lost to sugar forces in congressional votes over the past 20 years. Sugar lobbyists argue
that they have been successful because their policy is the right one, and they say that the power of their political
contributions is overstated. "We get requests, and we try to respond to those requests," said Kevin S. Price, director of
government affairs for American Crystal. Included in American Crystal's contributions was $3,000 for Maloney, who is
better known as an advocate for women's rights and a new Second Avenue subway line in New York, in connection with
her breakfast event. In a statement explaining her sugar vote, Maloney's office said a Domino refinery that processes
Florida sugar in Yonkers, outside her district, provides "good union jobs" for 142 hourly workers whom she is "proud to
support." The International Longshoremen's Association, which had been representing the workforce, contributed
$5,000 to Maloney in June. But union spokesman Jim McNamara said the Yonkers workers recently voted to end their
affiliation with the longshoremen. They were voting this week on joining another union. A majority interest in the plant
is held by Florida Crystals Corp., owned by Alfonso and J. "Pepe" Fanjul, Cuban exiles who built a huge enterprise of
sugar plantations and refineries after fleeing Fidel Castro's government. The company's executive vice president,
Donald W. Carson, gave $2,000 in connection with the Maloney breakfast, and the Florida Sugar Cane League chipped
in $1,000, according to Tulloch, the congresswoman's election attorney. The league represents Florida Crystals and the
U.S. Sugar Corp., another giant conglomerate. Maloney was not available for comment because of a "jam-packed
schedule," said spokeswoman Meghan O'Shaughnessy. Rep. Steven R. Rothman (D), whose densely populated
northeast New Jersey district is across the Hudson River from Manhattan, picked up $3,000 from American Crystal's
fund the same day as the Maloney event. Earlier he got $1,000 from a North Dakota-based sugar-beet group. "He has
been a supporter of the sugar program for a long time," said Rothman's chief of staff, Bob Decheine. "With increasing
potential to grow crops for fuel, you don't want to undercut farmers who are growing those crops." For Rep. Maurice D.
Hinchey (D-N.Y.), who has collected $5,500 from sugar groups this year, support for the program "is a trade and family
farm issue," said spokesman Jeff Lieberson. The congressman "opposed NAFTA and continues to oppose any effort that
uses cheap imports to undercut American jobs." The sugar lobby has also tapped into anti-trade sentiment elsewhere.
Maine's Michaud, who along with sugar interests opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement, picked up
$7,000 from seven sugar groups in May. Democratic control of Congress has put sugar interests in a strong position
during this year's debate on the farm bill. Political contributions from the web of groups representing sugar have tilted
heavily toward that party, and 177 Democrats voted "no" to eliminating the provisions in July. House Agriculture
Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson's Red River Valley district in Minnesota is the nation's top sugar-beet producer,
and the Democratic chairmen of the Senate Finance and Budget committees come, respectively, from Montana and
North Dakota, both sugar-beet-growing states. Another Democrat, Rep. Charlie Melancon (La.), is a former president of
the American Sugar Cane League. Labor unions with strong Democratic leanings also help extend sugar's power.
Joseph Thibodeau, executive vice president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers
International Union, which represents several thousand workers in beet-sugar refineries in Idaho, Wyoming, Minnesota,
Michigan and the Dakotas, describes the legislation as "very important to us." All $259,000 that the union gave for the
2006 elections went to Democrats. Thibodeau said he is confident that defeat of the sugar provisions "is not going to
happen." In the Senate, he noted, Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has been a reliable supporter,
even though Iowa grows few sugar beets. "He gets what he wants on his side, and the sugar guys get what they want,"
Thibodeau said. "It's why the program is going to continue for the next five years."
27/52
Elections DA
AT: Agriculture lobby powerful
Internal divisions within the agricultural lobby prevents them from having any influence on policy
Leonard 2007
(Christopher, AP Business Writer, “AP Centerpiece: Ethanol boom and rising corn prices divide farm lobbyists”,
September 13th)
As a chief advocate for corn farmers around the country, Rob Litterer will be working the halls of Congress this fall to
push for increased ethanol production. But he's facing stiff opposition from what on the surface seems an unlikely
source the farm lobby. The burgeoning ethanol industry is creating a wave of prosperity for rural towns throughout the
Midwest, but the energy bonanza is also pitting farming groups on separate sides of the fence. Corn farmers are
pushing for more ethanol production as the industry creates an enormous new market for their crop, giving corn prices
the kind of lift they haven't seen in years. But the corn farmer's win is the hog farmer's loss. Meat, dairy, and other food
producers are pushing back against the ethanol boom as higher grain prices cut into their already slim profit margins.
So as Litterer, incoming president of the National Corn Growers Association, visits with members of Congress in
coming months, he knows that meat and dairy lobbyists will be close behind, delivering the opposite message. "There
is no question they have a policy that they are opposed to an increase," Litterer said. "But I don't think their opposition
carries any water." The tension between grain producers and food producers is roiling agricultural markets around the
world as high oil prices spur governments to subsidize food-based fuels like ethanol and biodiesel. The Mexican
government this week put a cap on tortilla prices after prices shot up between 20 and 30 percent over uncertainty that
there would be enough U.S. corn available for export. Brazil will ask the World Trade Organization to formally
investigate U.S. farm subsidy programs including payments for ethanol production. Brazil is the second-largest
producer of ethanol in the world after the United States, but is the No. 1 exporter of the fuel, which in Brazil is mainly
made from sugarcane. The political waves and their effect on government policy can mean life or death for the budding
biofuels business. Ethanol and biodiesel served a niche market before the U.S. government imposed a mandate called
the Renewable Fuel Standard requiring the U.S. to use 7 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2012. This fall, Congress
will consider a new fuel standard that could boost production as high as 36 billion gallons by 2022. But the future of
that bill is uncertain because of the food fight shaping up between grain producers and livestock lobbyists. "It's very
true that the agricultural lobby will speak with a louder voice if it's saying the same thing. In that sense, it's been a less
united voice than it has in the past," said Pat Westhoff, an economist with the Food and Agricultural Policy Research
Institute at the University of Missouri.
28/52
Elections DA
Obama Bad – hardline on the Middle East
Obama maintains hardline on Iran, Syria, and Lebanon
Huda al Husseini, a prominent Lebanese writer, March 18th, 2008

Asharq Alawsat – the leading Arabic International Daily, “Disarming Hezbollah and American-Iranian
Rapprochement”, http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=12137
El-Hokayem believes that American foreign policy will witness change if Democratic candidate Barack Obama wins
the elections. He added, "There will be no change for the first six months of his term in office. The Americans are
waiting for change on the Iranian level. Obama will not support the Iranian conservatives at the expense of the
reformists and moderates. He will not meet with Ahmadinejad given that the Iranian Presidential elections will be held
in June 2009. Obama said that he will meet the leaders of South Korea, Iran, Cuba and Syria but he will make no
concessions." As for Lebanon and Syria, American foreign policy will remain as it is in terms of content but the
priorities dedicated to them will diminish. And yet, if the incumbent US administration prioritizes Lebanon now, why
hasn't it achieved anything?
29/52
Elections DA
Obama Bad – Afghanistan [1/3]
Obama would increase troop levels in Afghanistan
Bainbridge, '8
(Law Prof -- UCLA, http://www.stephenbainbridge.com/punditry/comments/credit_where_due/ )
Obama intends to pour more troops and resources into defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan. He told The Sunday
Times he would expect European allies to contribute more to the fight. “You can’t have a situation where the United
States and Britain are called on to do the dirty work and nobody else wants to engage in actual fire-fights with the
Taliban.” He praised Prince Harry’s “commendable” service - “I’m sure the British people are very proud of him” -
and said America would have a “special, special relationship” with Britain should he win the White House. “That’s
inviolable,” he said. Europe, he added, would get something in return for an extra push in Afghanistan. “It’s
important for us to send a signal that we’re going to be listening to them when it comes to policies they find
objectionable, Iraq being top of the list.” All the way back in March 2004, I wrote that: People might also ask
whether some of the troops tied down in Iraq couldn’t be better used in Afghanistan tracking down bin Laden and the
rest of the al Qaeda leadership. I was always taught to finish one job before starting another. Granted, law school taught
me to multi-task, but it does seem like we let al Qaeda slip in the priority list while taking out Saddam.
American military presence in Afghanistan fuels the insurgency and prevents the US from being able to
succeed
Herold 2006
(Marc W., Departments of Economics and Women's Studies Whittemore School of Business & Economics University of
New Hampshire. U.S. military strategy to maintain Afghanistan as an 'Empty Space', March 18,
http://www.cursor.org/stories/emptyspace4.html)
The traditional guerrilla tactic of fading away into the villages and hamlets also raises the political cost for U.S. and
Afghan forces as they bomb or attack villages, break into homes, killing and injuring civilians as occurred numerous
times recently. At least 100 civilians have been killed by U.S. military action during the past year (see Table 1). The
nighttime raids turn villagers against U.S. occupation forces.17 The corrupt and rapacious behavior of central
government representatives does the same. For example, The elders from the Sangin district of Helmand, which
American planes bombed recently, said they had joined the small number of Taliban fighters because the government
officials preyed on them and robbed them. 'The Taliban are in the villages, among the people,' said Ali Seraj, a
descendent of Afghanistan's royal family and a native of Kandahar...With its corrupt and often brutal local officials, the
government has pushed Afghans into the hands of the Taliban, said Abdul Qadar Noorzai, head of the Afghan
Independent Human Rights Commission in Kandahar.18 A deputy director of Amnesty International heard on his recent
visit to Afghanistan, ...numerous accounts of deeply offensive behavior toward women by U.S. forces, such as
ransacking women's belongings and verbal abuse during weapons searches. 'We will kill to protect the honor of our
women and children,' said one released detainee whose family had allegedly endured such treatment... We took scores
of testimonies from individuals who alleged wanton destruction or theft during raids. We also heard tales of males being
humiliated by, among other things, being forced to kneel on the ground with heads bowed while being blindfolded and
handcuffed, sometimes hooded, in the presence of their families before being taken away for interrogation.19 The
expectation (and hope) is that U.S forces will periodically engage in outrageous behavior that can then be amply
broadcast, serving to further alienate local populations. One recalls the incident in October 2005, of U.S. troops burning
two Taliban bodies in the mountains north of Kandahar, a desecration of Muslim practice.20 Also, stories of torture by
U.S. soldiers of abducted persons at U.S. forward operating bases fan the flames of the insurgency. In effect, a
stalemate -- or an empty space -- has been created where neither the U.S occupation forces nor the insurgency can
prevail. Knowing this, each side adjusts accordingly in order to carry on the war-without-end at least cost.
30/52
Elections DA
Afghan decline spills over, undermining trade throughout Central Asia
Medler ‘05
(James D., Senior Risk Analyst with Digital Sandbox, Inc., “Afghan Heroin: Terrain, Tradition, and Turmoil”, Orbis,
49(2), Spring)
A transnational network of heroin smuggling routes originates in Afghanistan and extends out into the wider region like
the spokes of a wheel. The countries immediately adjacent to Afghanistan—Pakistan, Iran, and the other Central Asian
states—are most affected by the Afghan drug trade, for not all the heroin coming out of Afghanistan actually leaves the
region.15 Afghanistan’s historic role as a geostrategic crossroads linking the region cannot be underestimated. In
addition to the spillover of drug-related activity, the Central Asian states remain concerned about fundamentalist Islam
emanating from Afghanistan, even after the fall of the Taliban. Though often seen by its neighbors as a source of danger
in recent decades, it also represents opportunity to Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, Iran. In economic terms, it holds the
potential to serve as a conduit for globalization and development as well as criminal activity and religious unrest. If it
can sustain its political progress, the benefits will be felt throughout the region and beyond. However, its role in the
transnational heroin trade must first be better understood and decisively addressed.
31/52
Elections DA
Central Asian trade prevents regional conflicts that escalate to global nuclear war
Starr ‘03
(S. Frederick, Chair – Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, “Afghanistan: Free Trade and Regional Transformation”,
http://www.cacianalyst.org/Publications/Starr_Asia_Society_Afghanistan.htm)
However great the economic and social benefits of renewed regional trade across the broader region of Central Asia,
they are fully matched by the huge gains in world security that will flow from these changes. Indeed, it is hard to
imagine any other practical and simple steps anywhere that would bring about greater geopolitical benefits for all. One
may speak of ten different areas in which these improvements will be quickly felt: First, the revival of regional trade
will do more than any other single measure to rebuild the Afghan economy, generate state income, and enable the
government to provide security and basic human services to its people. This in turn will undercut the appeal of
extremist and criminal activities. And it will do so in a way that reinforces Afghanistan’s need to maintain cordial relations with all its
neighbors. Second, trade with Afghanistan and the broader region of Central Asia, as well as with India and Iran, will stimulate the flagging economy
of Pakistan. The port of Karachi will become a regional hub and Pakistani businesses will be able to exploit new opportunities in every direction.
Third, Indians will not choose to remain aloof from this opportunity, even if the price is improved relations with Pakistan. While this will not in itself
resolve the conflict over Kashmir, it will improve the better the climate in which the parties address that thorny problem. Fourth, through region-
wide trade to the northeast and east, Iran will reclaim its traditional vocation as a pragmatic trading state. This will tip
today’s fragile balance between mullahs and merchants in favor of the latter, hastening positive political change in that
country. It will also cause Iran to look eastward and will distance it from the messy and seemingly intractable problems of the Arab world. Fifth, by
renewing trade with their age-old partners to the south and southeast and by gaining direct access to the nearby port of Karachi, the new states of
Central Asia will become economically more viable and sustainable. While region-wide trade will benefit all five of these states, the
impoverished mountain countries of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan will see the biggest gains as they acquire the ability to market their most valuable
product, hydroelectric power. Sixth, because these economic benefits can be reaped only when harmonious and productive relations prevail among
the regional states, they will encourage all the Central Asian leaders and their governments to work with, rather than
against, each other. Seventh, in the five new states, as in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, trade and investment will
favor the formation of an independent middle class and undercut the appeal of radical Islamist movements. As the new
governments gain in confidence they will be able to tolerate greater openness and participation by members of the
public. This will in turn strengthen their identity as moderate Islamic societies ruled by secular states. As such, they will present an alternative
model of modern development to the entire Muslim world. Eighth, through the opening of trade relations with their natural partners to the south and
access to the port of Karachi, the new states of Central Asia will shed their one-sided dependence on Russia and reduce that country’s ability to
control their overall destinies. Stated differently, free trade will do for these countries what multiple pipelines will do for the oil-producing countries
of the Caspian basin. Ninth, the growth of stability in Afghanistan and the broader region of Central Asia will address what Russia has for a decade
identified as its number one security concern. Free trade with the south clear to Pakistan and India will stimulate the flagging economies of the Urals
region as well. All this will cut the grounds from under those in the Russian military and intelligence services who feel that they must somehow regain
a deciding voice in Central Asian affairs. The waning of neo-imperial sentiment will in turn enhance the prospects for more
open public life in Russia. Tenth, the establishment of stable and prosperous regimes in neighboring Afghanistan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, and
Tajikistan and the fading of radical Islamist currents there will address China’s major security objective, namely, that these countries not become
transmission points for destabilizing movements within Turkic and Muslim Xinjiang. While this will not resolve the question of Xinjiang autonomy
(any more than it will resolve the analogous issue in Kashmir) it will at least improve the climate in which it can be considered. America’s Decisive
Role in Bringing a New Central Asia Into Being - Reviewing this list, it is clear that the establishment of free trade throughout the
broader region of Central Asia promises benefits for all and liabilities for none. It is a policy that is not directed against the
interests of any state in the region. On the contrary. it is a policy that promotes the long-term objectives of all the states and of their peoples. One
might reasonably argue that over time the regional transformation described above will take place on its own, without any major push from any
quarter. Supporting this claim is the fact that the changes in question are not either new or revolutionary. Rather, they will bring about the
reestablishment of certain relationships that proved their value over the course of several thousand years. The fact that the first steps along these lines
are already visible lends further credibility to this argument. At the same time, the region in question poses unique dangers. No other
area on the planet is surrounded by four, possibly five, nuclear powers and a sixth power, Turkey, that is a NATO
member. Nowhere else do the tectonic plates of several great civilizations and economic zones grind so directly against
one another. So while the opening of freer trade may somehow be in the natural order of things, the risks of the process
going awry are enormous. And were that to happen, it would put at risk not one but several of the relationships on
which world security is grounded.
32/52
Elections DA
Obama Bad – US/EU relations
US/EU relations enable Russia to move westward
National Review, 2/24/2003

This entrenchment of the U.S. in Europe would pave the way for the gradual but full admission of Russia into the West.
One lesson of the period from 1949 to the end of the century is that the American presence in Europe means that no
European nation need fear its neighbor. All that the U.S. requires in return is a willingness to contribute to the general
defense. And it has proved very lax in enforcing even that. If America is firmly anchored to the Continent, then there is
no need for Europeans to fear Russia as a NATO member any more than there would be to fear a hypothetical Franco-
German federal entity. And from Russia's point of view, the shrinkage of the EU as a provider of security would mean
that the U.S. is the only game in town. That would remove every objection to Russia's NATO (and wider EU)
membership, save only the historical suspicion of Russia among its former satellites. What the latter want is clear
evidence that Russia has abandoned its imperial nostalgia, is now firmly committed to a different course, and would not
therefore use its NATO membership to obstruct American protection. According to opinion polls, generational change in
Russia already seems to be producing a public opinion that is less suspicious of the West. Putin needs to build on this
with such "confidence-building" methods as retiring the oligarchs from politics; protecting the freedom of the press
rather than buying it up; ensuring that mafia organizations are either forced out of business or half forced, half bribed
into reconstructing themselves as respectable companies; and eventually apologizing to eastern Europeans for the
Stalinist occupation.
Market liberalization devastates the Russian economy
Financial Times, August 18, 2003

Liberalization risks giving even more space to the already powerful oligarchs. The most modern companies in today's
Russia are largely those run by the oligarchs, who have been the biggest beneficiaries of the stability Mr Putin has
fostered. Peter Aven, a former trade minister who now runs Alfa Bank, estimates that 12 big groups control 60 per cent
of the economy - probably more in absolute and proportionate terms than they did in 1998, and certainly in a wider
range of sectors. That figure is likely to grow as reform proceeds. For example, the future break-up of UES, approved
this year by the Kremlin and parliament, will probably involve the sale of generating and distribution companies to big
business groups. Similarly in banking, if the market were liberalised, the only domestic groups with sufficient capital to
operate nationally would probably be the oligarch-controlled conglomerates.
Russian economic collapse outweighs their petty regional wars
Intrilligator 1998
Michael, Professor of Economics and Political Science at UCLA, Contemporary Economic Policy, April, 1998, p. 244
The potential implications of this economic performance are devastating, including possible social and political
instability and even the chance of a return of authoritarian rule, probably either military or fascist. Indeed, there are
disquieting parallels between Russia today and the Weimar Republic period in Germany that led to the rise of Hitler in
January 1933, including depression, inflation and loss of empire and status in the world. As a result, the question of the
future of Russia represents one of the most serious potential threats to global security today, probably a greater threat
than regional conflicts, proliferation, terrorism, and other more frequently cited international security threats.
33/52
Elections DA
Obama Good – Global Warming
Obama key to any effective US policy to solve global warming
Loeb 2008
(Scholar -- Center for Ethical Leadership, Huffington Post, March 1st, )
If we ignore global warming much longer, we'll face a world of perpetual disaster, so there's no larger question for
presidential candidates than who is more likely to tackle it successfully. Although Obama's and Clinton's positions are
similar, he seems far more likely to. The key difference is their ability to mobilize a grassroots base to demand that
the necessary changes get passed. If you look only at the candidate platforms, both Obama's and Clinton's are excellent. John Edwards was
the first to come up with a comprehensive plan, but Obama soon did too, followed by Clinton. Both Obama and Clinton focus on renewable energy in
their speeches and ads, pledging major incentives and R&D programs for renewables, increased portfolio standards for utilities, and cap-and-trade
systems with decreasing limits where permits would be auctioned off, not just given away. Both support green jobs programs to benefit communities.
Both talk of continuing to tighten efficiency standards for buildings, vehicles, and businesses. I wish both took firmer stands against nuclear power
and liquid coal, but either would offer a strong alternative to our current inaction. Their programs are also both considerably better than that those
John McCain suggests. While McCain talks a decent line, especially compared to his numerous climate change-denying Republican colleagues, he
equivocates far more on the critical details, supports considerably more modest carbon reduction standards, and this past December abdicated the
chance to cast the critical cloture vote and end a Republican filibuster that blocked the recent energy bill's most important provisions. Both Obama
and Clinton get the urgency of the issue as much as any mainline American politician who isn't named Al Gore. But I think Obama is far more
likely to pass anything close to the legislation we need, because of his ability to mobilize ordinary citizens. Clinton
emphasizes her insider knowledge, her familiarity with process. But in a period when Republicans first prevented Democratic bills from coming to the
floor, and then filibustered them if they did, she's mostly been unable to coalesce participants across the admittedly entrenched political divides,
unless you count crossing the aisle to support a flag-burning bill or backing the Iraq war. Her track record's no worse than other Democratic Senators,
and she did successfully co-sponsor bi-partisan legislation to protect bonuses for wounded veterans and extend family medical leave for wounded
soldiers. But it's a record certainly matched by Obama. In his four-year-briefer tenure, he's secured major Republican support to pass a major
transparency bill that publicly lists all organizations receiving Federal funds, how much they've received, and the purpose of their grant or contract.
He's passed another that provides resources to seek out and destroy surplus and unguarded stocks of conventional arms -- like land mines and shoulder
fired missiles -- in Asia, Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. And together with Russ Feingold, he played a key role in developing and
passing a law that eliminated gifts of travel on corporate jets from lobbyists to members of Congress and required disclosure of bundled campaign
contributions. Even if you ignore his major achievements in the Illinois legislature -- like bringing police chiefs and civil liberties advocates together
to craft and support a bill providing clear monitoring of police interrogations, and passing a bill extending health care to 150,000 state residents -- I'd
say evidence of insider ability is a wash. The critical difference between Obama and Clinton is their potential to encourage
ordinary citizens to speak out on the changes that we need. And that will be essential. If you strip away the racial connotations,
that's actually the core of the debate over Clinton's claim that LBJ was more critical to the passage of the Civil Rights Act than Martin Luther King.
For all that I loathe Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War, he did stake his entire political capital and massive skill to navigate the Civil Rights and
Voting Rights Acts through Congress -- even though he knew it would lose the Democrats the South for a long time to come. But without the massive
citizen movement that put civil rights onto the nation's conscience and at the top of its political agenda, he'd never have taken these stands. When you
read books like Taylor Branch's wonderful history of America in the King years, it's clear how much both LBJ and Kennedy viewed the civil rights
movement as a politically loaded intrusion on their other agendas. Kennedy did all he could to pressure King and other civil rights leaders not to hold
the 1963 March on Washington. But as the pressure kept building, they finally answered the movement's call and lent their moral support to it, just as
Franklin Roosevelt played a critical role by lending his support to America's resurgent union movement. We'll need a similarly powerful
massive movement now -- and ideally a president willing to nurture it -- to overcome the massive dollars and
entrenched political clout of companies like Exxon/Mobil, Peabody Coal, and General Motors. In that context, there's
no comparison between the candidates. Obama evokes the power of citizen movements in every speech he gives. He explicitly
challenges ordinary citizens to see themselves as part of a lineage of change, with their own political participation following in the footsteps of America's most fundamental movements for justice. Obama evokes those roots when he talks of
slaves and abolitionists who "blazed a trail toward freedom through the darkest of nights," and of "workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot...and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised
Land." Obama explicitly calls for citizens to act beyond the confines of electing him to office. His campaign echoes this call by relying on volunteers to organize themselves, take their own initiative, and find common strength in connecting
with each other. The campaign provides materials, talking points, and video images, and is extraordinarily organized in ensuring that every critical precinct gets walked and every key household gets called. They learned the rules of the Texas
caucus and Pennsylvania delegate systems, for instance, while the Clinton camp was reduced in the case of Texas to complaining and threatening lawsuits and failed to file a full slate of Pennsylvania delegates. Yet Obama's campaign has
also sacrificed a significant amount of control over precisely how their volunteers reach out once they're engaged. In my home state of Washington, operations were run for months by an entirely volunteer group that included several former
Bush and Ross Perot supporters in key roles who'd been disillusioned by disasters like Iraq, and then inspired by Obama's words. Their Ohio volunteer phone script, for instance, offers a standard summary of issues to raise, but also explicitly
encourages volunteers to talk about their specific reasons for participating. The campaign has also continually helped connect ordinary citizens with each other, consistent with Obama's years as a community organizer and then as a lawyer
, they'll make these new participants part of an

representing these same grassroots organizations. Because these new connections are created in a way that's likely to last past the election
independent base for change that can both help Obama pass key legislation on issues like climate change, and press him
to act more strongly when he compromises unduly. Clinton's campaign, by contrast, has been top-down and controlled
from the start, giving local campaigners far less latitude.
34/52
Elections DA
Obama Good – Syria engagement
Obama will engage Syria
Daily Star, February 27, 2008

Obama said that once elected, he would engage Syria. Some of his advisers have already gone to Damascus, most
recently Zbigniew Brzezinski. Even though the Syrian regime may soon find itself accused of involvement in the Hariri
murder, Obama and his team have not set any preconditions for easing the pressure on Damascus, post-Bush.
35/52
Elections DA
Obama Good – US/EU Relations
Democrat win boosts US-EU relations.
Kupchan, '8
(Senior Fellow -- CFR, Current History, March)
This year’s election in the United States has the potential to advance further the repair of the Atlantic link. President
Bush, despite the conciliatory overtures of his second term, remains a singularly unpopular figure in Europe. The bitter
legacy of the Iraq War, Bush’s stingy approach to fighting climate change, his refusal to negotiate with Iran, his policies
on treatment of detainees—all these continue to generate ire. Should the Democrats prevail in the presidential contest,
transatlantic relations are poised to receive a new boost. Indeed, Europe awaits with bated breath the arrival of a
Democrat in the White House.
36/52
Elections DA
Obama Good – US/Russia Relations
Obama will repair strained US/Russia relations, McCain will cause them to deteriorate
Christensen and Partlett 2008

(co-editor Stanford Law Rev; PhD Soviet history, Erik & William, 3/6, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5043)
Senator McCain seems to support the deterioration in the U.S.-Russian relationship. "I know Mr. Putin,” he has said.
“I've looked into his eyes, and I saw three letters -- KGB." Senator Clinton, in a possible attempt to outdo her colleague
from Arizona, stated: "This is the president that looked into the soul of Putin, I could have told him, he was a KGB
agent, by definition he doesn't have a soul, I mean this is a waste of time, right, this is nonsense." Senator Clinton
appears to have willfully ignored the advice of Madeleine Albright, one of her top foreign policy advisers, who has said
that you must be careful how you choose your words because of how they will be interpreted abroad. Indeed, when
President Putin was recently questioned about Senator Clinton's assertion that he lacks a soul, he responded: "At a
minimum, a head of state should have a head." Senator Obama came dangerously close to repeating the same mistake
during the debate in Cleveland last week when he began to answer a question about Russia by also invoking President
Bush's statement on Putin's soul. Senator Obama adroitly proceeded, however, by pointing out that Bush's failure was
not in looking into Mr. Putin's soul but in refusing to do the diplomatic legwork to establish a meaningful dialogue.
According to Senator Obama, this refusal led to our current difficulties: "And so we did not send a signal to Mr. Putin
that, in fact, we were going to be serious about issues like human rights, issues like international cooperation that were
critical to us." An Obama Alternative? Encouraging dialogue is a hallmark of Senator Obama's perspective on American
foreign policy. Accordingly, he has been the most outspoken candidate on working together with Russia to drastically
reduce the two powers' nuclear stockpiles. This vision of nuclear abolition, which Ronald Reagan and Mikhail
Gorbachev nearly negotiated at Reykjavik in 1986, has more recently been supported by luminaries of both parties
including Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, and Sam Nunn. Senator Obama has traveled to Russia with Sen. Richard
Lugar (R-IN) to advance the goals of the Cooperative Threat Reduction program and authored legislation with Lugar
subsequent to their visit to control the spread of nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union. Senator Obama has
also suggested a full evaluation of the benefits of a missile defense system before rushing toward deployment. Although
he has not stated opposition to the program in principle, he appears sensitive to concerns about this program among our
Western European allies. Senator Obama's top Russian adviser, Michael McFaul, is well respected for his scholarship on
democratization, and U.S.-Russian relations, in particular. True, McFaul was excessively optimistic in his assessment of
Putin in 2000 and more recently has come under criticism for attacking Putin with too much vigor while sparing Yeltsin.
Nevertheless, the bulk of McFaul's work exhibits a deep and nuanced insight into the complicated nature of Russian
politics and society. Senator Clinton has also expressed a desire to achieve a joint reduction of nuclear weapons with
Russia. But she has supported the missile shield program. Senator McCain has been vocal concerning proliferation to
non-nuclear states, but has not discussed cooperation with Russia. Senator McCain voted against ratification of the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1999, a treaty that was ratified by Russia and all of our European allies.
McCain’s support for missile defense is unequivocal. He has said, “I don’t care what [Putin’s] objections are to it.”
The time is ripe for a renewal of U.S.-Russian relations. The tone of President Putin's handpicked successor – Dmitry
Medvedev - is much less confrontational than his mentor. And, despite genuine differences, there are many areas of
intersection. Russia stands to lose as much from terrorism and geopolitical instability in the Middle East as America
does. Both Medvedev and Obama are young, former law professors. If elected, perhaps they can move past the Cold
War rhetoric and build a constructive relationship around shared principles.
37/52
Elections DA
McCain Bad – Iran Strike [1/2]
McCain will strike Iran
Clemons 08
(Steve, Senior Fellow & Director of the American Strategy Program @ New America Foundation, “John McCain:
Maverick Man Who Thinks War With Iran Inevitable,” Huffington Report, 2/4)
On Iran and its nuclear program, McCain has been so flippantly bellicose -- singing "Bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" to
the Beach Boys tune -- that some conservatives have warned that a President McCain would take America to war with
Iran. McCain last Sunday said: "There's going to be other wars... I'm sorry to tell you, there's going to be other wars.
We will never surrender but there will be other wars." Presumably, McCain was suggesting his view that a war with Iran
was inevitable. When asked by Joe Scarborough about McCain's statement, Pat Buchanan replied: "That is straight
talk... You get John McCain in the White House, and I do believe we will be at war with Iran." Buchanan said, "That's
one of the things that makes me very nervous about him," adding, "There's no doubt John McCain is going to be a war
president... His whole career is wrapped up in the military, national security. He's in Putin's face, he's threatening the
Iranians, we're going to be in Iraq a hundred years."
McCain would strike Iran
Dreyfuss March 18th, 2008

(Robert, independent journalist, profiled as a leading investigative journalist by the Columbia Journalism Review, and
two of his articles have won awards from The Washington Monthly, awarded Project Censored’s first prize for a story
on the role of oil in U.S. policy toward Iraq, appeared on scores of radio and television talk shows, including Hannity
and Colmes on Fox News, C-Span, CNBC, MSNBC, Court TV, and, on National Public Radio, The Diane Rehm Show
and Public Interest with Kojo Nnamdi, and Pacifica's Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, RINF.com, “McCain the
Warmonger?”, http://rinf.com/alt-news/politics/mccain-the-warmonger/2716/)
McCain has made no secret of his belief that using force against Iran is the only way to prevent it from acquiring
nuclear weapons. “There is only one thing worse than a military solution, and that, my friends, is a nuclear-armed Iran,”
McCain said. “The regime must understand that they cannot win a showdown with the world.” He supports tougher
sanctions against Tehran, but critics note that implementing them would require Russia’s consent. McCain’s provocative
anti-Russia stand, though, makes such a deal less than likely. And he rejects direct US-Iran talks. In the end, McCain
seems almost reflexively to favor the use of America’s armed might. “He would employ military force to the exclusion
of other options,” says Larry Korb, a former Reagan Administration defense official. Scion of admirals (his father and
grandfather), a combat pilot in Vietnam who continued to believe long after that war that it might have been won if the
US military had been allowed free rein, McCain presents the image of a warrior itching for battle. He is the candidate of
those Americans whose chief goal is an endless war against radical Islam and who’d like nothing more than for the
Arizona senator to clamber figuratively into the cockpit once more. Like his former aide Marshall Wittman, currently a
top aide to Senator Lieberman, McCain sees Theodore Roosevelt, the Bull Moose interventionist President of the early
twentieth century, as his role model. And that attracts neoconservatives.
38/52
Elections DA
Strikes Impacts
Strikes cause Syria to retaliate against Israel with smallpox
Corsi 07
(Jerome, citing Jill Bellamy-Dekker, director of the Public Health Preparedness program for the European Homeland Security
Association under the French High Committee for Civil Defense “Syria ready with bio-terror if U.S. hits Iran”
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54542)
An American biodefense analyst living in Europe says if the U.S. invades Iran to halt its nuclear ambitions, Syria is ready to
respond with weapons of mass destruction – specifically biological weapons."Syria is positioned to launch a biological attack
on Israel or Europe should the U.S. attack Iran," Jill Bellamy-Dekker told WND. "The Syrians are embedding their biological
weapons program into their commercial pharmaceuticals business and their veterinary vaccine-research facilities. The
intelligence service oversees Syria's 'bio-farm' program and the Ministry of Defense is well interfaced into the effort."Bellamy-
Decker currently directs the Public Health Preparedness program for the European Homeland Security Association under the
French High Committee for Civil Defense.She anticipates a variation of smallpox is the biological agent Syria would utilize.
The impact outweighs nuclear war
Singer 01
(Clifford, professor of nuclear engineering @ U Illinois @ Urbana—Champaign “Will Mankind Survive the Millennium?”
http://www.acdis.uiuc.edu/research/S&Ps/2001-Sp/S&P_XIII/Singer.htm)
In recent years the fear of the apocalypse (or religious hope for it) has been in part a child of the Cold War, but its seeds in Western culture go back to the Black
Death and earlier. Recent polls suggest that the majority in the United States that believe man would survive into the future for substantially less than a
millennium was about 10 percent higher in the Cold War than afterward. However fear of annihilation of the human species through nuclear warfare was
confused with the admittedly terrifying, but much different matter of destruction of a dominant civilization. The destruction of a third or more of much of the
globe’s population through the disruption from the direct consequences of nuclear blast and fire damage was certainly possible. There was, and still is, what is
now known to be a rather small chance that dust raised by an all-out nuclear war would cause a so-called nuclear winter, substantially reducing agricultural
yields especially in temperate regions for a year or more. As noted above mankind as a whole has weathered a number of mind-boggling disasters in the past
fifty thousand years even if older cultures or civilizations have sometimes eventually given way to new ones in the process. Moreover the fear that radioactive
fallout would make the globe uninhabitable, publicized by widely seen works such as "On the Beach," was a metaphor for the horror of nuclear war rather than
reality. The epidemiological lethal results of well over a hundred atmospheric nuclear tests are barely statistically detectable except in immediate fallout
plumes. The increase in radiation exposure far from the combatants in even a full scale nuclear exchange at the height of the Cold War would
have been modest compared to the variations in natural background radiation doses that have readily been adapted to by a
number of human populations. Nor is there any reason to believe that global warming or other insults to our physical
environment resulting from currently used technologies will challenge the survival of mankind as a whole beyond what it has
already handily survived through the past fifty thousand years. There are, however, two technologies currently under
development that may pose a more serious threat to human survival. The first and most immediate is biological warfare
combined with genetic engineering. Smallpox is the most fearsome of natural biological warfare agents in existence. By the
end of the next decade, global immunity to smallpox will likely be at a low unprecedented since the emergence of this disease
in the distant past, while the opportunity for it to spread rapidly across the globe will be at an all time high. In the absence of other
complications such as nuclear war near the peak of an epidemic, developed countries may respond with quarantine and vaccination to limit the damage.
Otherwise mortality there may match the rate of 30 percent or more expected in unprepared developing countries. With respect to genetic engineering using
currently available knowledge and technology, the simple expedient of spreading an ample mixture of coat protein variants could render a vaccination response
largely ineffective, but this would otherwise not be expected to substantially increase overall mortality rates. With development of new biological technology,
however, there is a possibility that a variety of infectious agents may be engineered for combinations of greater than natural
virulence and mortality, rather than just to overwhelm currently available antibiotics or vaccines. There is no a priori known
upper limit to the power of this type of technology base, and thus the survival of a globally connected human family may be in
question when and if this is achieved.
39/52
McCain Bad – LOST [1/3]
McCain victory means continued opposition to Law of the Sea
McCain 08
(John, www.redstate.com/stories/elections/2008/mccain_would_oppose_law_of_the_sea_treaty)
There’s more encouraging news today about mounting Republican opposition to the Law of the Sea Treaty. Sen. John McCain
told bloggers this morning that he would oppose the measure if it came to the Senate floor as it currently exists.
I’d like to make some changes to it. I think that we need a Law of the Sea. I think it’s important, but I have not frankly looked
too carefully at the latest situation as it is, but it would be nice if we had some of the provisions in it. But I do worry a lot about
American sovereignty aspects of it, so I would probably vote against it in its present form.
US Ratification key to prevent miscalc & conflict with Russia, New Cold War, and Russian Expansionism
Eachus 07
(Ron, Former legislator, Statesman Journal, 9/10
www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070910/COLUMN0703/709100322/1064)
The hypothetical Northwest Passage via the Arctic Ocean is becoming a reality as a result of global warming. But the U.S. is at
a disadvantage because of its reluctance to join other countries in the one international agreement that can help sort out the
ensuing stampede for resources and concurrent need for environmental and cultural protection.
It is ironic. Burning fossil fuels triggers accelerated melting of the Arctic ice. The receding ice makes new oil and gas deposits
more accessible. The cycle of excessive consumption perpetuates itself and fosters a new "cold war" as Russia, the U.S,
Canada and other countries lay claim to the fuel- and mineral-rich sea bed. And here's another irony: Even President Bush, who
has utter disregard for treaties to reduce carbon emissions, recognizes that ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty is
necessary. In 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea adopted rules under which each country is entitled to a 200-
nautical-mile economic zone with rights over natural resources. Countries can claim jurisdiction beyond that if they can show
that their continental shelf extends further. All Arctic border countries except the U.S. have signed the treaty, putting us on the
sidelines when boundaries are negotiated and disputes resolved. We're powerful enough to bully our way around, but we don't
have much standing without the treaty. Since 1982, the Arctic sea ice has decreased by nearly 20 percent. And some geologists
estimate that nearly 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil lies under the now-more-accessible Arctic Ocean. Canada
asserts the passages through its Arctic archipelago are part of its internal waters. Russia claims that the undersea ridge from the
North Pole to Eurasia is a geological extension of its continental shelf. Denmark replies that the end of the same ridge was once
part of Greenland, which belongs to them. Russia even sent a mini-sub to the bottom of the ocean floor to stake a symbolic
claim with a flag encased in titanium. The vision may be laughable. But Russia takes this seriously. Oil revenues sustained
Cold War Russia. The resurgent Russia of today uses oil and gas as a tool for influence over its former Soviet Block states.
"The Arctic is ours and we should manifest our presence," the leader of the expedition declared. Forgive the obvious analogy,
but the recent spurt of activity is merely the tip of a larger iceberg to be revealed in the future when international tensions can
escalate into incidents and accidents. Posturing can easily lead to confrontation. Arctic climate change can lead to greater
storms. Oil spills there are harder to clean up. Lost in the territorial fray is the basic question of whether exploitation and
extraction of natural resources ultimately will be how we define the Arctic. As harsh as it is, this is a fragile and sensitive part
of the Earth. Is the Arctic to become another example of trampling on the environment, disrespect for native cultures, and
extinction of native species? Environmental organizations have been supportive of the Law of the Sea Treaty as a way to
control access and development. So whether one thinks we should protect the Arctic environment from exploitation or whether
one thinks we can't afford to let other countries control the resources, ratifying the treaty gives the U.S. a justifiable seat at the
negotiating table. When the Senate considers the treaty this fall, members should ratify it. Leaving the fate of the Arctic up to a
colonialism-like free-for-all of territorial claims will only feed an unfettered appetite for consumption and conflict.
And shoving the U.S. to the sidelines, where the options are limited to unilateral assertion of power reserved for the mighty,
isn't in our interests either.
Russian Expansionism Causes Multiple Scenarios for Nuclear War
Cohen 9
(Ariel, Heritage Foundation, 1/25, Lexis)
Much is at stake in Eurasia for the U.S. and its allies. Attempts to restore its empire will doom Russia's transition to a
democracy and free-market economy. The ongoing war in Chechnya alone has cost Russia $ 6 billion to date (equal to Russia's
IMF and World Bank loans for 1995). Moreover, it has extracted a tremendous price from Russian society. The wars which
would be required to restore the Russian empire would prove much more costly not just for Russia and the region, but for
peace, world stability, and security. As the former Soviet arsenals are spread throughout the NIS, these conflicts may escalate
to include the use of weapons of mass destruction. Scenarios including unauthorized missile launches are especially
threatening. Moreover, if successful, a reconstituted Russian empire would become a major destabilizing influence both in
Eurasia and throughout the world. It would endanger not only Russia's neighbors, but also the U.S. and its allies in Europe and
the Middle East. And, of course, a neo-imperialist Russia could imperil the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf. n15 n15 Vladimir
Zhirinovsky, mouthpiece for the most irredentist elements in the Russian security and military services, constantly articulates
this threat. Domination of the Caucasus would bring Russia closer to the Balkans, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Middle East.
Russian imperialists, such as radical nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, have resurrected the old dream of obtaining a warm port
on the Indian Ocean. If Russia succeeds in establishing its domination in the south, the threat to Ukraine, Turkey, Iran, and
Afganistan will increase. The independence of pro-Western Georgia and Azerbaijan already has been undermined by pressures
from the Russian armed forces and covert actions by the intelligence and security services, in addition to which Russian
hegemony would make Western political and economic efforts to stave off Islamic militancy more difficult. Eurasian oil
resources are pivotal to economic development in the early 21 st century. The supply of Middle Eastern oil would become
precarious if Saudi Arabia became unstable, or if Iran or Iraq provoked another military conflict in the area. Eurasian oil is also
key to the economic development of the southern NIS. Only with oil revenues can these countries sever their dependence on
Moscow and develop modem market economies and free societies. Moreover, if these vast oil reserves were tapped and
developed, tens of thousands of U.S. and Western jobs would be created. The U.S. should ensure free access to these reserves
for the benefit of both Western and local economies. In order to protect U.S. and Western interests in Eurasia and ensure free
and fair access to the oil reserves of the region, the United States should: * Strive to preserve the independence and economic
viability of the New Independent States in the region. In cooperation with Britain, Germany, and France, the U.S. should
prevent the reconstitution of Moscow's sphere of influence in the southern CIS. The West should not grant Moscow carte
blanche in the "near abroad" in exchange for cooperation in Bosnia. The U.S. should lead other Western countries in
implementing programs that support independent statehood, free-market development, and the rule of law in Azerbaijan,
Georgia, and the Central Asian states. Training for the civil and security services of these countries should be stepped up, and
economic reforms, including privatization of industries and agriculture, should be continued. Moreover, sanctions on technical
and humanitarian assistance to Azerbaijan, imposed at the height of the Karabakh conflict, should be lifted to increase
Washington's leverage in settling the conflict there. * Ensure that Russia is not a dominant, but rather an equal partner in
developing the oil resources of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Russian oil companies should be assured of equitable access to
the development of oil resources and pipeline projects. The strategic goal of the West should be the creation of a level playing
field that allows Russian and Western corporations to participate in the development of Eurasian energy resources on an equal
footing.
Leads to extinction
Bostrom 02
(Nick, PhD @ Oxford University, www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html)
A much greater existential risk emerged with the build-up of nuclear arsenals in the US and the USSR. An all-out nuclear war
was a possibility with both a substantial probability and with consequences that might have been persistent enough to qualify
as global and terminal. There was a real worry among those best acquainted with the information available at the time that a
nuclear Armageddon would occur and that it might annihilate our species or permanently destroy human civilization.[4]
Russia and the US retain large nuclear arsenals that could be used in a future confrontation, either accidentally or deliberately.
There is also a risk that other states may one day build up large nuclear arsenals. Note however that a smaller nuclear
exchange, between India and Pakistan for instance, is not an existential risk, since it would not destroy or thwart humankind’s
potential permanently. Such a war might however be a local terminal risk for the cities most likely to be targeted.
Unfortunately, we shall see that nuclear Armageddon and comet or asteroid strikes are mere preludes to the existential risks that
we will encounter in the 21st century.
McCain Bad – Global Gag Rule [1/2]
Obama will repeal the gag rule – McCain won’t
Pollitt 08
(Kathy, CBS News, 6/22, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/20/opinion/main4198848.shtml)
Are there feminist Hillary Clinton supporters who hate Barack Obama so much they'll vote for John McCain just to show the
Democratic Party how ticked off they are? Yes, and I get e-mails from all five of them. Seriously, I'm sure there are female Hillary
Clinton voters who will go for John McCain in the general election, but I don't think too many of them will be feminists. Because to
vote for McCain, a feminist would have to be insane. Let me rephrase that: she would have to believe that the chief — indeed the only
— goal of the women's movement is to elect Clinton, not to promote women's rights. A vote for McCain would be the ultimate face-
spiting nose-cutoff. Take that, women's equality! Not that the media will help women get it. As Eric Alterman and George Zornick
exhaustively document elsewhere in this issue, the mainstream press is doing its best to persuade us that McCain is a moderate --
barely distinguishable from Barack Obama — even on abortion rights, one of the brighter dividing lines between the parties. In the
Providence Journal five days after Clinton suspended her campaign, columnist Froma Harrop was typical: "Would McCain stock the
Supreme Court with foes of Roe v. Wade?... The answer is unclear but probably 'no.'" After all, in 1999 he told the San Francisco
Chronicle editorial board that he "would not support repeal" of Roe because women would seek unsafe, illegal procedures. Since the
Democrats will control Congress, Harrop figures, "McCain would probably choose a cipher" rather than get bogged down in the
abortion wars. This fake shrewdness, buttressed by much use of "probably," "seems," "may" and "my guess is," has as much value as a
bet by a drunk in a bar. We all have our hunches — usually they magically line up with our wishes and preferences, in Harrop's case,
her support for Clinton. By the end of the column she's castigating Obama for his "present" votes on abortion bills in the Illinois
Assembly, and by the time she's finished, you'd never know that NARAL and Planned Parenthood give Obama 100 percent ratings and
McCain a big fat zero. How antichoice is John McCain? Let's leave the psychological tea leaves out of it and look at his record. In his
four years in the House, from 1983 to 1986, he cast eleven votes on reproductive issues. Ten were antichoice. Of 119 such votes in the
Senate, 115 were antichoice, including votes for the ban on so-called partial-birth abortions and for the "gag rule," which refuses funds
to clinics abroad that so much as mention abortion. In 1999, the year he said he opposed repeal of Roe on health grounds, he voted
against a bill that would have permitted servicewomen overseas, where safe, legal abortion is often unavailable, to pay out of their
own pockets for abortions in military hospitals.
Gag rule causes global overpopulation
San Gabriel Valley Tribune 05

(7/11, Lexis)
Our past efforts have proven very successful: Because of years of hard work by the family-planning and reproductive- health
community, total world fertility has declined from six children per woman in the 1960s to fewer than three today. But as the
largest youth generation in history enters their reproductive years, our work is far from over. Unfortunately, the Bush
administration is doing everything in its power to stifle women's rights and jeopardize the future of our planet. For four years
running, President Bush has blocked funds that Congress has appropriated to the United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA],
the largest supplier of reproductive health-care and family-planning services worldwide. As one of his first acts in
office, Bush imposed the Global Gag Rule, which restricts foreign NGOs that receive money from the United States for
family-planning services from using their own funds to provide legal abortion services, give counseling or referrals for
abortion, or petition their own governments to liberalize restrictive abortion laws. The results of this policy were easy to
predict:Clinics are closing in Kenya, and contraceptive supplies have dried up in Ethiopia.
ADI 08
Elections
McCain Bad – Global Gag Rule [2/2]
Impact is extinction
Otten 01
(Edward, Prof @ U Cincinnati, http://www.ecology.org/biod/population/human_pop1.html)
The exponential growth of the human population, making humans the dominant species on the planet, is having a grave impact on
biodiversity. This destruction of species by humans will eventually lead to a destruction of the human species through natural selection. While
human beings have had an effect for the last 50,000 years, it has only been since the industrial revolution that the impact has been global
rather than regional. This global impact is taking place through five primary processes: over harvesting, alien species introduction, pollution,
habitat fragmentation, and outright habit destruction.
44
ADI 08
Elections
McCain Bad – Bush Doctrine [1/2]
McCain victory restarts the Bush doctrine and he will strike Iran
Broder 07
(Staff, June 7, Washington Post)
The leading Republicans, for their part, very clearly see the risks of failing militarily in Iraq but have offered no ideas other than a
continuation of the Bush policies that have lost most of their domestic support. Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney all
endorse what is in effect the status quo -- even when asked to suggest a possible alternative or fallback. None of them appears to have
heard of the Iraq Study Group suggestions.
Meantime, they see nothing wrong with raising the possibility of using a nuclear weapon -- for the first time in more than six decades
-- as a bargaining tool in dealing with the ticklish situation in Iran. It is hard to imagine a policy more likely to shift international
pressure away from sanctions on Iran and against the United States than talk of using the nuclear weapons in our arsenal against
targets in that part of the world. Sure, they say nukes would be a last resort, but they seem remarkably sanguine about brandishing
them.
McCain would continue the Bush Doctrine in the Middle East and beyond
Falk, '8
(Princeton Ilaw Professor, http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=134564&bolum=109)
But aside from Iraq there are no significant foreign policy differences between the approaches taken by the three candidates so far as
the Middle East is concerned. McCain is the only likely contender to have explicitly embraced the Bush approach to the region,
although his attitude toward Iran has not been clearly expressed to this point, and this is likely to be crucial. There are still rumors
floating about that there will yet be during the final months of the Bush presidency a major air attack launched against Iran. There are
reports now circulating of additional deployments of American aircraft carriers and minesweepers in the Persian Gulf. It is known that
Cheney, along with some neoconservative advisors and Israeli officials, has been pressing hard behind the scenes to discount the
mostly reassuring assessment of the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (a high-level report from the US intelligence community) that Iran had stopped its nuclear
weapons program in 2003. This pro-attack group seeks to revive a confrontational approach toward Iran that keeps the military option very much
on the table. It still seems unlikely that such an attack on Iran will occur, because of its anticipated costs: skyrocketing oil prices, retaliatory missile strikes, blockage of the
Straight of Hormuz, a further overstretching of the already overstretched American military, the likely hostile reaction of world public opinion and considerable opposition within the US. If such attack occurs,
and it cannot be ruled out despite its irrationality, the impact on the American presidential campaign would be decisive, pitting a
Democrat who deplores and repudiates such a bellicose approach to conflict against a Republican who seems fully comfortable with
the kind of militarist foreign policy associated with the Bush presidency, resorting to preventive wars being an essential element in the
"war on terror" and the accompanying struggle to keep America safe.
45
ADI 08
Elections
McCain Bad – Bush Doctrine [2/2]
Bush doctrine causes Indo-Pak war and a Taiwanese invasion.
Fetzer 02
(www.assassinationscience.com/domination.pdf)
A policy of preemption is not only morally corrupt but inherently destabilizing. As I observed in Reader Weekly (19 September 2002),
embracing first strikes encourages attacks upon your enemy for perceived threats, real or imagined. Unlike our policies of the past, according
to which the US would attack you only if you attacked us first, this new approach functions as an incentive to use 'em or lose 'em. It will
inevitably encourage Pakistan to attack India, China to attack Taiwan, North Korea its southern neighbor, and--most conspicuously--Iraq
to attack US forces in the Middle East.
Indo/Pak war causes extinction
Fai 01
(Executive Director of the Washington-based Kashmiri American Council. http://pakistanlink.com/Letters/2001/July/13/05.html )
The most dangerous place on the planet is Kashmir, a disputed territory convulsed and illegally occupied for more than 53 years and
sandwiched between nuclear-capable India and Pakistan. It has ignited two wars between the estranged South Asian rivals in 1948 and 1965,
and a third could trigger nuclear volleys and a nuclear winter threatening the entire globe. The United States would enjoy no sanctuary.
This apocalyptic vision is no idiosyncratic view. The Director of Central Intelligence, the Department of Defense, and world experts generally
place Kashmir at the peak of their nuclear worries. Both India and Pakistan are racing like thoroughbreds to bolster their nuclear arsenals and
advanced delivery vehicles. Their defense budgets are climbing despite widespread misery amongst their populations. Neither country has
initialed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or indicated an inclination to ratify an impending Fissile
Material/Cut-off Convention.
And so does a Taiwanese war
Johnson 01
(The Nation. 5-14)
China is another matter. No sane figure in the Pentagon wants a war with China, and all serious US militarists know that China's minuscule
nuclear capacity is not offensive but a deterrent against the overwhelming US power arrayed against it (twenty archaic Chinese warheads
versus more than 7,000 US warheads). Taiwan, whose status constitutes the still incomplete last act of the Chinese civil war, remains the most
dangerous place on earth. Much as the 1914 assassination of the Austrian crown prince in Sarajevo led to a war that no one wanted, a misstep
in Taiwan by any side could bring the United States and China into a conflict that neither wants. Such a war would bankrupt the United
States, deeply divide Japan and probably end in a Chinese victory, given that China is the world's most populous country and would be
defending itself against a foreign aggressor. More seriously, it could easily escalate into a nuclear holocaust. However, given the nationalistic
challenge to China's sovereignty of any Taiwanese attempt to declare its independence formally, forward-deployed US forces on China's
borders have virtually no deterrent effect.
46
ADI 08
Elections
McCain Bad – NK Talks
McCain will let 6-party talks break down
Berkofsky March 19th, 2008

(Dr Axel, Adjunct Professor at the University Milan and Advisor on Asian Affairs at the European Policy Centre (EPC) in Brussels,
ISN Security Watch, “(Maybe) denuclearizing North Korea”, http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=18773)
Neither is Pyongyang in a rush either to solve the nuclear, uranium enrichment and proliferation issues, satisfied with waiting to see
who will take over the White House, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on 5 March. "North Korea it is in no hurry to
resolve the dispute over its nuclear programs while the current US administration is in office," Yonhap quoted a recent article in North
Korea's Rodong Shinmun. North Korea will not be "decisive and to try to make a deal with Bush while he is a lame duck," Hayes
says, adding that "ultimately, the Six-Party talks will break down under a McCain presidency or be replaced by a new process under a
Democratic administration."
Breakdown of negotiations spark Korean conflict
Glosserman 2003
(Brad, Director of Research at Pacific Forum CSIS, 11/4/03, “US-China: the next alliance?”,
http://www.glocom.org/debates/20031104_gloss_us/)
Failure to reach a negotiated solution could trigger a war in Northeast Asia, bringing untold devastation to both North and South
Korea, and possibly Japan. War, or even the fear of war, could unleash waves of refugees. The economies of South Korea and Japan
would be hard hit, and the ripples would spread through China as well, destroying the stability that is the prerequisite for economic
development.Failure to cap the North Korean nuclear threat would oblige Japan to look hard at the utility of its alliance with the
United States. While a nuclear-armed North Korea should not in itself be enough to challenge the credibility of the US commitment to
defend Japan, it could raise questions about US leadership and Washington's ability to manage regional security problems. Similarly, a
North Korean nuclear weapon should not oblige South Korea to rethink its military posture, but, it might also be forced to reassess its
views of American leadership.
Nuclear War results
Tong-Whan 2004
(Park, KORUS Institue, “The United States and South Korea: Reinvigorating the Partnership”, www.keia.com/2-Publications/ 2-3
Monograph/Monograph2004/Monograph2004.pdf)
The capabilities of the two Koreas are matched to the extent that neither side could survive a war and afterwards claim anything but a
Pyrrhic victory. In conventional forces, North Korea’s overwhelming numerical superiority is checked by the qualitative edge held by
the South Korean military. Add to the South’s forces the U.S. forces stationed in Korea (USFK) and even a prudent assessment of the
military balance will have to come out in favor of the South. But Pyongyang’s qualitative deficiency in conventional forces is more
than made up by its unconventional forces. It is known to have a strong chemical and biological warfare capability along with perhaps
a few crude nuclear devices.2 Moreover, North Korea has more than 100,000 special forces—the world’s largest special forces—
trained to stage a guerrilla war behind the lines. North Korea reportedly maintains a large contingent of spies and sympathizers in the
South. In a war, the asymmetry in military capability between the two sides might play out this way: Pyongyang ignites internal
turmoil in South Korea with its “sleeper” agents, and the special forces infiltrate by air and through tunnels. As the guerrilla-style
agitation builds, Seoul will find it extremely difficult to suppress the turmoil. South Korea’s only option will be a full-scale retaliation
against the North; this will escalate into an all-out war. Although the ROK-U.S. combined forces will expect to win eventually, the two
Koreas will suffer unbearable damage, including the prospect of extinction for the North Korean regime. Faced with this imminent
danger, the Pyongyang regime will resort to WMD, including atomic bombs. Pyongyang’s use of nuclear weapons will force the
United States to respond in kind, resulting in devastation beyond imagination.
47
ADI 08
Elections
McCain Bad - Imperialism
A McCain win would usher in a new era of US imperialism

(Robert, independent journalist, profiled as a leading investigative journalist by the Columbia Journalism Review, and two of his
articles have won awards from The Washington Monthly, awarded Project Censored’s first prize for a story on the role of oil in U.S.
policy toward Iraq, appeared on scores of radio and television talk shows, including Hannity and Colmes on Fox News, C-Span,
CNBC, MSNBC, Court TV, and, on National Public Radio, The Diane Rehm Show and Public Interest with Kojo Nnamdi, and
Pacifica's Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, RINF.com, “McCain the Warmonger?”, http://rinf.com/alt-news/politics/mccain-the-
warmonger/2716/)
If you’ve followed Senator John McCain at all, you’ve heard about his tendency to, well, explode. He’s erupted at numerous Senate
colleagues, including many Republicans, at the slightest provocation. “The thought of his being President sends a cold chill down my
spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper, and he worries me,” wrote Republican Senator Thad Cochran, shortly before
endorsing McCain. You’ve heard about his penchant for bellicose rhetoric, whether appropriating a Beach Boys song in threatening to
bomb Iran or telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that he doesn’t care what he thinks about American plans to install missiles in
Eastern Europe. And you’ve heard, no doubt, about McCain’s stubbornness. “No dissent, no opinion to the contrary, however reasonable,
will be entertained,” says Larry Wilkerson, a retired army colonel who was former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s top aide.
“Hardheaded is another way to say it. Arrogant is another way to say it. Hubristic is another way to say it. Too proud for his own good is
another way to say it. It’s a quality about him that disturbs me.” But what you may not have heard is an extended critique of the kind of
Commander in Chief that Captain McCain might be. To combat what he likes to call “the transcendent challenge [of] radical Islamic
extremism,” McCain is drawing up plans for a new set of global institutions, from a potent covert operations unit to a “League of
Democracies” that can bypass the balky United Nations, from an expanded NATO that will bump up against Russian interests in Central
Asia and the Caucasus to a revived US unilateralism that will engage in “rogue state rollback” against his version of the “axis of evil.” In
all, it’s a new apparatus designed to carry the “war on terror” deep into the twenty-first century. “We created a number of institutions in
the wake of World War II to deal with the situation,” says Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s top adviser on foreign policy. “And what
Senator McCain wants to begin a dialogue about is, Do we need new structures and new institutions, both internally, in the US
government, and externally, to recognize that the situation we face now is very, very different than the one we faced during the cold war?”
Joining Scheunemann, a veteran neoconservative strategist and one of the chief architects of the Iraq War, are a panoply of like-minded
neocons who’ve gathered to advise McCain, including Bill Kristol, James Woolsey, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Gary Schmitt and Maj.
Ralph Peters. “There are some who’ve moved into his camp who scare me,” Wilkerson says. “Scare me.” If McCain intends to be a shoot
first, ask questions later President, consider a couple of the new institutions he’s outlined, which seem designed to facilitate an
unencumbered, interventionist foreign policy. First is an unnamed “new agency patterned after the…Office of Strategic Services,” the
rambunctious, often out-of-control World War II-era covert-ops team. “A modern day OSS could draw together specialists in
unconventional warfare; covert action operators; and experts in anthropology, advertising, and other relevant disciplines,” wrote McCain
in Foreign Affairs. “Like the original OSS, this would be a small, nimble, can-do organization” that would “fight terrorist subversion [and]
take risks.” It’s clear that McCain wants to set up an agency to conduct paramilitary operations, covert action and psy-ops.
48
ADI 08
Elections
McCain Bad – US Imperialism
McCain would start numerous interventionist wars in the Middle East – he’s THE neocon

warmonger/2716/)
Earlier in his Congressional career, McCain was reluctant to engage in overseas adventures unless American interests were directly
threatened. He opposed US involvement in Lebanon in the early 1980s, and in Haiti and the Balkan conflicts in the early 1990s. But as the
post-cold war environment seemed increasingly to promise unchallenged American hegemony, McCain took up the neocons’ call for
interventionism. His views crystallized in a 1999 speech, when he called for the United States to use tough sanctions and other pressure to
roll back “rogue states” like Iraq and North Korea, adding, “We must be prepared to back up these measures with American military force
if the existence of such rogue states threatens America’s interests and values.” In referring to “values,” McCain indicates his support for
the notion that a selective crusade allegedly on behalf of freedom and democracy can provide a rationale for an aggressive new foreign
policy outlook. “He’s the true neocon,” says the Brookings Institution’s Ivo Daalder, a liberal interventionist who conceived the idea of
a League of Democracies with Robert Kagan. “He does believe, in a way that George W. Bush never really did, in the use of power,
military power above all, to change the world in America’s image. If you thought George Bush was bad when it comes to the use of
military force, wait till you see John McCain…. He believes this. His advisers believe this. He’s surrounded himself with people who
believe it. And I’ll take him at his word.” Not surprisingly, the center of McCain’s foreign policy is the Middle East. “He’s bought into the
completely fallacious notion that we’re in a global struggle of us-versus-them. He calls it the ‘transcendental threat…of extreme Islam,”
says Daalder. “But it’s a silly argument to think that this is either an ideological or a material struggle on a par with [the ones against] Nazi
Germany or Soviet Communism.” For McCain, the Iraq War, the conflict with Iran, the Arab-Israeli dispute, the war in Afghanistan, the
Pakistani crisis and the lack of democracy in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are all rolled up into one “transcendent” ball of wax.
49
ADI 08
Elections
McCain Bad – Destroys the CIA
McCain’s first act as president would be to destroy the CIA

warmonger/2716/)
This idea is McCain’s response to a longstanding critique of the CIA by neoconservatives such as Richard Perle, who have accused the
agency of being “risk averse.” Since 2001 the CIA has engaged in a bitter battle with the White House and the Pentagon on issues that
include the Iraq War and Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The agency lost a major skirmish with the creation of the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence, which put the White House more directly in charge of the intelligence community. And now
McCain wants to put the final nail in the CIA’s coffin by creating a gung-ho operations force. Scheunemann, who credits Max Boot
of the Council on Foreign Relations with the idea, says the new agency is urgently needed to “meet the threats of the twenty-first
century in a time of war, much as the OSS was created in a time of war.” And he disparages the CIA as a bunch of has-beens. The new
agency would eclipse “an organization created to meet the needs of the cold war and hang out in embassies and try to recruit a major
or two or deal with walk-in defectors,” Scheunemann told The Nation. But John McLaughlin, a former deputy director of the CIA
who retired in 2004, is more than skeptical, and he worries that McCain doesn’t understand the need for Congressional controls over
spy agencies. “You need to have Congressional oversight and transparency,” he says. “I would not recommend a new agency that is
set up parallel to the CIA…. All of those things can be done within the boundaries of the CIA.” Told about McLaughlin’s comments,
Scheunemann says, “Anyone who thinks that the agency today is a nimble, can-do organization has a different view than Senator
McCain does.”
50
ADI 08
Elections
McCain Bad – UN Credibility 1/2
McCain would decimate the UN’s credibility

warmonger/2716/)
The UN, too, would be shunted aside to make room for McCain’s new League of Democracies. Though the concept is couched in
soothing rhetoric, the “league” would provide an alternate way of legitimizing foreign interventions by the United States when the UN
Security Council won’t authorize force. Five years ago, on the eve of the Iraq War, McCain said bluntly before the European Parliament
that if Security Council members resisted the use of force, or if China opposed US action against North Korea, “the United States will do
whatever it must to guarantee the security of the American people.” Among the targets McCain cites for his plan to short-circuit the UN
are Darfur, Burma, Zimbabwe, Serbia, Ukraine and, of course, Iran–and he has already referred to “wackos” in Venezuela. According to
Scheunemann, it’s an idea that bubbled up from some of McCain’s advisers, including Peters and Kagan, but it alarms analysts from the
realist-Republican school of foreign policy. “They’re talking about a body that essentially would circumvent the UN and would take
authority to act in the name of the international community, sometimes using force,” says a veteran GOP strategist who knows McCain
well and who insisted on anonymity. “Well, it’s very easy to predict that the Russians and Chinese would view this as a threat.”
UN Credibility solves extinction
Berman 2005
(Ari, a contributing writer for The Nation, covering national politics and the 2008 election, and an Investigative Journalism Fellow at
The Nation Institute, September 29th, The Nation, “'The Hammer' Gets Hit”)
During the cold war, the UN helped mediate what would otherwise have been an even more precarious situation of hair-trigger nuclear
destruction. After the Soviet empire collapsed, the UN helped ease transitions on several continents - as it did earlier in helping
manage instabilities that arose when the West European nations' empires splintered. The UN-related economic bodies - the World
Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization - have meanwhile buttressed a global market system that has
generally been very good to Americans. So why - at a time when it is increasingly evident that in Iraq, as in the fight against violent
extremism elsewhere, the US needs international cooperation more than ever - should the Bush administration and its man in New
York be threatening to cause serious disruption to Washington's relations with the world body? Mr. Bolton - named by Mr. Bush as a
"recess appointment" ambassador to the UN last month, bypassing the wait for a Senate confirmation - startled the representatives of
most other nations in New York with his list of amendments to the summit declaration. On one issue he wants amended - the list of
"Millennium Development Goals" that the UN adopted back in 2000 - a key Bolton spokesman got downright ornery, accusing UN
officials of "manipulating the truth" when they claimed the US had previously endorsed these goals and now seemed to be
backtracking from that earlier commitment. (The UN officials look right on that one.) The tiff over this key issue in international
development efforts epitomizes the deeper discord over whether the US really judges that responsibilities within the world system
should be reciprocal and based on the principles of human equality and human solidarity - or not. The UN majority today thinks they
should be. Bolton and his boss, the president, apparently disagree with that majority. Yes, it's true that the UN itself is far from
perfect. But at the end of the day, the United Nations is just that: a confederation of the world's largely independent nation-states. It
has very little independent existence of its own, and can only ever be as strong as the commitment it gets from its members. Under
Bush - especially since he made the near-unilateral decision to initiate a war against Iraq in 2003 - the commitment of the world's most
powerful nation to the UN and its principles has eroded drastically. To reduce American support for the foundations of this vital
institution any further would be crazy. A UN that is any further weakened means the increased insecurity of everyone in the world.
And, yes, that includes Americans.
51
ADI 08
Elections
McCain Bad – War with Russia
McCain would provoke a war with Russia

warmonger/2716/)
McCain seems almost gleeful about provoking Russia. At first blush, you’d think he’d be more nuanced, since many of the foreign
policy gurus he says he talks to emanate from the old-school Nixon-Kissinger circle of détente-niks, including Henry Kissinger
himself, Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent Scowcroft. Their collective attitude is that as long as Moscow doesn’t threaten US interests,
we can do business with it. But there is little evidence of their views in McCain’s policy toward Putin’s Russia. “I think it’s fair to
assume that he’s most influenced by his neoconservative advisers,” says the GOP strategist. “We need a new Western approach to…
revanchist Russia,” wrote McCain in Foreign Affairs. He says he will expel Russia from the Group of Eight leading industrial states, a
flagrant and dangerous insult, one likely to draw stiff opposition from other members of the G-8. He refuses to ease Russian concerns
about the deployment of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, saying, “The first thing I would do is make sure we have a
missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia [sic] and Poland, and I don’t care what [Putin’s] objections are to it.” And he’s all
for rapid expansion of NATO, to include even the former Soviet republic of Georgia–and not just Georgia but also the rebellious
Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Since Kosovo’s declaration of independence on February 17, which was opposed
by Russia, Moscow has said it intends to support independence of the two Georgian regions, making McCain’s goal of expanding
NATO provocative, to say the least. “McCain says [NATO] ought to include Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are not under the
control of the current Georgian government,” says a conservative critic of the Arizona senator. “Which, if not a prescription for war
with Russia, is at least a prescription for conflict with Russia.”
War with Russia leads to extinction
Dyer 2005
(Gwynne, a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries, “War: The Lethal Custom”, April 10th,
pg. 1)
When I wrote the first edition of this book in the mid-1980’s, the Cold War was nearing its second climax and the world lived in fear
of an all-out nuclear war: ten thousand nuclear warheads exploding more or less simultaneously over all the main cities of Europe,
North America, and Asia, destroying not only hundreds of millions of lives but most of the cultural heritage and capital stock
accumulated over five thousand years of civilization. Five years later, we were granted a reprieve: a wave of non-violent democratic
revolutions took us completely by surprised and swept away the governments on one side of that long and terrifying confrontation.
Now, for the moment, we are safe. The only kind of international violence that worries most people in the developed countries is
terrorism: from imminent heart attack to a bad case of hangnail in fifteen years flat. We are very lucky people- but we need to use the
time we have been granted wisely, because total war is only sleeping. All the major states are still organized for war, and all that is
needed for the world to slide back into a nuclear confrontation is a twist of the kaleidoscope that shifts international relations into a
new pattern of rival alliances. That time may not come for another decade or so, but unless we can build institutions that move us
decisively away from the old great-power game, sooner or later it surely will. And then at some later point, great-power war will also
return: the megatons will fall, the dust will rise, the sun’s light will fail, and the race may perish. We may inhabit the Indian summer
of human history, with nothing to look forward to but the “nuclear winter” that closes the account.
52

Elections DA (ADI)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Elections DA (ADI)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Arizona Debate Institute 2008 Fellows

Obama Good Shell

(insert plan is popular)

McCain will lose unless Bush adopts popular policies

Obama Good Shell

Obama victory will solve multiple scenarios for global war

Obama Bad Shell

Phoenix Business Journal, August 1st, 2008

McCain is firmly opposed to agricultural subsidies

The Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2008

Obama Bad Shell

Weisman and Barrionuevo 6

Obama Bad Shell

Morris and McGann August 1st, 2008

The impact is global nuclear war

Obama wins now

NBC News, August 1st 2008

Svetkey August 1, 2008

ABC News 07/23

Popularity from overseas trip

Third party candidates solidify Obama lead

McCain has no base – grassroots conservatives won’t work for him

McCain can’t convince evangelicals, who are key to his election

StarTribune July 31, 2008

Erbe August 1st, 2008

McCain wins now

Obama won’t win – McCain has better voter turnout

McCain leads in polls – Iraq

McCain wins now

McCain is gaining ground against Obama – Negative attack ads

Alex Spillius, August 1st, 2008

Washington Post 2006

Eliminating ethanol subsidies is popular

Substantial support for shift in ethanol policy

Politicians shifting to oppose ethanol subsidies

Link Turn– Subsidies popular

Cutting subsidies is unpopular with farming communities

Knight Ridder Tribune Business News. Mar 26, 2007

Ethanol subsidies are popular – bipartisan backing

Ethanol subsidies are backed by the powerful farm lobby

Plan is unpopular – Congress wants to please ethanol lobbies

Ethanol lobby controls Congress

Ethanol lobby entrenches Congress

MPSP beneficiaries are concentrated in key election states like California

Ethanol Key to the Election

Ethanol subsidies are key to the election

Swing voters decide the election

Swing voters key to McCain’s election

Other Issues Key

IHT August 2, 2008

(2) Health care

(3) Foreign Policy – Middle East

Too early to call

VOA August 1, 2008

Agriculture lobby extremely powerful

AP March 27, 2008

Washington Post 2006

Agriculture lobby controls the election

AP March 27, 2008

Sugar lobby extremely powerful

Sugar lobby extremely powerful

AT: Agriculture lobby powerful

Obama Bad – hardline on the Middle East

Obama maintains hardline on Iran, Syria, and Lebanon