Counter Argument Quotes
1968 was one of the more polarized presidential elections, and most politicians in the heat of debate, tended to make ad hominem attacks on their opponents instead of rational arguments. Conservatives tended to attack opponents as communists, communist sympathizers, or giving aid and comfort to the communists. Often they never got around to attacking the real political position of their opponents. Buckley realized that he would not persuade many of his fellow conservatives to eschew the personal red-baiting on their opponents. Their political; base demanded this. But he urged them to restrain themselves and first make a rational attack on liberalism and liberal policies. Very few took his advice that year or ever in the remainder of the century until the fall of the Soviet Union.
The first printed appearance of the world occurred in a Washington Post article by Dan Batlz, May 26, 1996.
The news coverage cycle of a Presidential campaign had become so accelerated that candidates commonly gave copies of major addresses of press before the address was delivered so that the spinners could get to work and frame the issues of the speech so that it will be reported in a way favorable to them. The Clinton-Gore campaign first came up with a weapon to neutralize this pre-release of speeches. Specifically, they read copies of the speech and instead of waiting until the speech was given to rebut it, they issued the rebuttal before the speech was given so that their spinners could have an equal shot at influencing the reporting of the speech when it would be given. Gore coined the word, ‘prebuttal’ to describe the new technique. Soon everyone was issuing prebuttals to addresses whenever they were released in advanced—and prebuttals began to be issued outside of the campaigns and applied to any speech that any officeholder would give. The common sequence was: Address Release & Spin, Prebuttal & Spin, Speech Delivery, Rebuttal, Spin by both sides.
