The straw-man argument
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A favourite of conservatives, this rhetorical trick is used by those who can't survive an honest debate. Rush Limbaugh is the master of this technique - the only times he appeared in real debates he panicked, and since then he's carefully selected even his studio audience. He simulated a "conversation" with Hillary Clinton with miscellaneous quotes. Instead of taking on arguments from normal environmentalists and feminists, he only deals with easy-to-defeat extremists - for example, feminists who consider all sex rape, or nihilists who consider nature more ethical than civilization. Liberals and even moderates use straw-man tequniques so rarely that Al Franken's straw-man chapters (His "interview" with Rush, fun with Rush's "fact checker", more fun with...) in _Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot_ stand out hilariously. Of course, straw man arguments are usually easy to spot - kind of like people talking to themselves.
Another straw-man method is used by infomercials - the psudo-sceptic or fake opponent. Some sneaky psudo-opponent straw-men are in media debates, with wishy-washy centralists and moderate conservatives being cast in the "liberal" or even "progressive" side of the debate.
If they can't fight an imaginary enemy or hire an actor, conservatives "go negative early" to quote the famous republican strategy memo. They can take a real opponent and redefine them as the straw man of their choosing. They are very quick to brand their opponents as "socialists" "commies" or even (femi)"nazis".
No matter what's actually said, we're more likely to side against someone described as a Nazi than a moderate.