-PJ
I've said in the past that we need a modernized version of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.President Trump should offer to appear at three one-on-one debates with no moderators. Each debate will focus on a primary theme, but the candidates will be free to wander if they wish. Topics would likely be 1) the economy/trade, 2) foreign policy/immigration, 3) health care/race relations. Side topics would likely be 1) taxes/climate change, 2) government corruption/drain the swamp, 3) gun control/crime.
Each candidate is given 60 minutes of time to use as they wish. Think of a giant chess clock, where the candidate presses a button when they finish and the clock automatically starts for the opponent. When a person's time is up, they are finished and the other person gets to use their remaining time un-rebutted.
When nobody has any time left, the debate is over.
The first debate would be a free-for-all as the candidates would likely forget about time-management and be all over the place. Disputes might arise, candidates would interrupt and talk over the other, one might just press the button to start the other's clock out of frustration. The bottom line is that the candidates will learn to police themselves during the debate.
The second debate would be better, but probably over-compensated in time management, resulting in sound-bites with no elaboration.
The third debate would be the clincher, where the most savvy candidate would have gotten their act together and figured out how to pull off the total package.
President Trump has already been perfecting this with his helicopter press conferences. He's been willing to meet with an adversarial press frequently and already knows how to think on his feet, as opposed to his predecessors who preferred the controlled optics environment where everything was scripted in advance.