I was unable to catch last night's debate but I did get to hear a few clips and read up on the debate thanks to the great liveblogging here at DailyKos. One of the clear problems with a debate that lasts only 90 minutes with 8 participants is the lack of time available for a detailed response. Worse is when a debate consists of relatively frivoulous questions that don't help a voter distinguish between candidates. In specific, when there are questions that apply only to a single candidate a debate become very worthless since that does not allow us, the voters, to compare and contrast the answers. I began thinking about how a debate with so many candidates could be successful in helping the voters make informed decisions.
My thoughts, the debate would only have five questions. The same questions would be asked of each candidate. Candidates would have two minutes to respond and would have another minute for rebuttal if neccessary. The candidates would all receive the questions before the debate. With eight candidates this would make the debate 2 hours. There would be no opening statements but candidates could reserve their rebuttal minutes if they wanted to make a closing statement.
The five questions would be related to the most important issues facing the next President and would not be about haircuts or internal campaign strategies.
In no particular order these are the questions I would want answered:
-How are you going to deal with Iraq?
-What are you going to do about Healthcare?
-What are your plans for Social Security?
-What are your ideas concerning the role of the United States in World Affairs?
-What is your plan to reduce the Deficit?
While the press may think asking if a Democratic candidate owns a gun or agrees with Harry Reid that this administration has lost Iraq those questions could be asked of these candidates on any day of the week. What is the use of a debate if we can't hear about the different positions candidates have on actual issues. For the future, maybe there ought to be more specific debates. A debate on environmental policy and only environmental policy using the five question format might be helpful. I don't know about MSNBC or CNN but I do know that I want a useful and informatitive debate.