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Richard Cotton had talking points and stuck to them.

i especially liked how he kept pushing the same two lines over and over again, but as soon as alexis came close to saying any sort of soundbyte he just yells out "sloganeering doesn't help anything".

Cotton was used to the environment where he knows there is a limited amount of time to make his case to the public. He (attempted to) connect it with a subject they care about (jobs) and then did everything he could to shut down any substantive exchange on the issue by talking over Alexis. Within the limited amount of time available, Cotton got more of his message across than Alexis.

I feel like I should be uploading episodes of 30 Rock to every site I can find just to even things out.

No one likes the tactic of interrupting every dissenting opinion, but without a doubt it's extremely effective.

I know that having everyone at podiums or at a table is a very human thing for debates, making them seem like they're open discussions, but tactics like this prevent such discussions, and are fairly obnoxious for people who are actually trying to listen.

I'd rather just put everyone in sound booths with cameras and then mute them when it's not their turn.

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