How Best to Debate

Over the past two weeks, the American public has had the opportunity for a mere introduction to the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. I say "mere introduction" because the debate format followed by MSNBC in both cases limited candidates to 30-60 second responses...hardly enough time to get in a sound bite, let alone convey real substance. But what else can you do when you've got 8 Democratic and 10 Republican candidates taking their turn and vying for 90 minutes of our attention? Hardly a real chance for any of the second tier candidates to vault into the top tier.

During the next several months, we are bound to see the fields narrowing (even if Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich finally throw their hats in the ring) but, even so, there must be a better way to design these debates so that there is equal opportunity without sacrificing substance.

Wouldn't it be more effective to allow the top three candidates in each party (by polling) automatic entry in a debate and then take turns using one of the second tier candidates so that there are only four candidates on a stage in any given debate? That way we, the American public, can size him up against our front-runners and decide if we should re-think our favorites. It seems like they're having one debate a month, so we'd probably be able to get through the entire field on both sides by the end of summer or early fall (particularly since some are likely to drop out before then due to lack of funds, etc.).

In any case, once each party determines its nominee, I really hope the powers that be (nominees, party officials, and media) will decide to have some very substantive debates leading up to election day, much like those proposed by Gingrich and described in an earlier posting to this blog.

Marvin Kalb made an interesting suggestion along those lines in today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/opinion/05kalb.html?ex=1336017600&en=2f82cbd351dd9cbd&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Let's take advantage of all these major networks and cable stations and make them all bow to their responsibility to inform the public.