Home » Here’s that analysis of the Christie-Rubio bout, blow by blow—but it’s applicable to arguments in general

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Here’s that analysis of the Christie-Rubio bout, blow by blow—but it’s applicable to arguments in general — 11 Comments

  1. Heroic! Whew! Neo, you are amazing in your analytic capacity. But, in the end, this is precisely why you and I generally do not watch these phony “debates.” They remind me of bear baitings.

  2. Ralph:

    Thanks!

    Some people would add that I’m a bit OCD in my analytic capacity. My ex-husband would probably be one of them 🙂 .

    But this one really has got me going. Perhaps because I was so surprised at what I found when I looked more deeply.

  3. What Rubio “lost’ was due to all the Talking Heads telling all the sheeple that Rubio lost.
    Here’s a guy saying that Obama means us harm, and Christie and the MSM attack him. Nice. Who’s your enemy, still-fat man?
    But thanks, Neo. I do not watch any TV except the odd snatch of C-Span.

  4. Hi Neo-neocon,

    I’ve never commented before but I’ve read your blog on and off for years. I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your blog and that you are a very trenchant and honest thinker. This was a great post and helped me think through this more clearly. Know that you have at least one fan working at the State Department! May God bless you,

    Hans

  5. Great post. I really enjoyed your analysis. It is a pity Rubio got trapped but I think if he had started to differentiate between content and protest on the spot it would have been even worse. The audience would have felt uneasy. Philosophy was always for the happy few.
    PS: excuse my rather primitive english/ I am french. But I had a wonderful english teacher in Lycée Henri IV in Paris, long time ago, who demanded us to learn “To his Coy Mistress” by heart…and I still remember the poem 40 years after!

  6. Home run analysis. I never watch political debates as they are usually a carnival show. If I am curious about the msm buzz I read the transcript. Now I have neo to not only read the transcript, but to provide erudite analysis. 🙂

  7. All lawyers are trained to speak cogently with systematic preparation but they’re not trained to speak extemporaneously. That’s either natural skill or honed apart from legal training.

    Generally speaking, lawyers might appear to be superior extemporaneous speakers due to practice and preparation, and of course, many lawyers self-select into the field due in part to their skill speaking extemporaneously (or at least glibly). But that’s not a legally trained skill, and many lawyers surprisingly are not skilled extemporaneous speakers, which becomes apparent when they’re outside of their practice.

    Though it’s also adversarial public speaking, an election TV debate is not like trial advocacy. It’s not even like high school debate.

    A such, my advice to Senator Rubio is less specific to his and Christie’s respective law backgrounds, though it’s good advice for litigators, too.

    My advice to Rubio is that all public speaking, in and out of the courtroom, is essentially storytelling.

    Always be mindful of the basics of effective narrative. Establish and liberally refresh the contextual frame for your individual points. Lay the foundation and refresh the premises the audience needs to process your narrative as you mean them to understand it.

    Setting the contextual frame in an election TV debate is a competitive endeavor. It’s a Narrative contest for the zeitgeist particular to that format. Your opponent is laying his foundation and undermining your frame in order to assert his contextual frame that unmoors your narrative.

    The transcript text shows Christie and Rubio grappling for the frame for their respective points and counter-points. Rubio’s rhetoric faltered because he lost contact with the contextual frame for his point and drifted on a tangent. Not far, but far enough for Christie to obscure Rubio’s narrative thread.

    According to the transcript excerpts Neo posted, Christie didn’t exhibit especial rhetorical skill. It was Rubio who screwed up.

    I say that sympathetically. I’ve been there, done that on shoulda/coulda gimme points.

    If Rubio was frustrated enough to sense something was amiss, as he appeared to be, but could not pinpoint the problem on the spot, as it appeared he did not, the simple corrective technique in order to step back and regain his footing would have been to re-state his point and Christie’s point – essentially summarize them – in order to re-establish his contextual frame while surreptitiously troubleshooting the exchange. That kind of re-set likely would include Neo’s advice of pointing out the opponent’s switch from content to process. A candidate can use that tactic in an election TV debate in a way he couldn’t as a lawyer at trial.

  8. Chris Christie is in full on Muslim denial mode — and Barry is a knave denial mode.

    So, while he muddied up Marco’s image — he sank his own ship.

    That reality hit him immediately after the votes were tabulated up in New Hampshire.

    &&&&&&

    I have to go with Scott Adams — when he proclaims that identity trumps analogy… which trumps reason.

    The fact is that most folks can’t think logically — in the least.

    They really are ‘moist robots.’

    &&&&&&&

    Barry Soetoro is polluting the polity with alien cultures.

    It’s reached a crisis point — so severe that we need to halt ALL immigration.

    America is simply not an empty nation any more.

    The West is going to HAVE TO eject the Third World from its polity.

  9. blert:

    Lately it has occurred to me that 7 years of Obama has driven the US electorate mad. Logic is not the strong suit of most people, but it’s gotten much much worse.

    Lately, I’ve seen even people who previously seemed quite logical losing that capacity.

  10. Lately, I’ve seen even people who previously seemed quite logical losing that capacity.
    ***
    It’s easier to be logical when your worldview is not being challenged by reality.

    Great post; analytic OCD rocks!

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