[pfflier]

I sincerely believe that the field should be reduced to two leaders by whatever methods then only those two debate.

And when I say debate, I mean they sit face to face then a moderator throws a piece of raw meat between them to see who is the alpha candidate.

[Publius]

PBS did something even better in 1980. They understood that if the candidates appeared, all they would do would be to repeat talking points reduced to sound bites.

Instead they got the advisers and potential future staffs of the candidates to appear on a debate dedicated to one particular topic. Each team had a captain who would assign team members to make a case or a rebuttal. There was direct cross questioning, rebuttal and counter-rebuttal of team members

For example, the debate on domestic and financial issues had Dr, Arthur Laffer as captain of the Reagan team, and he would signal team members to jump in if he didn’t want to handle the question or the rebuttal himself. One of my cherished memories is of Dr. Laffer just eviscerating Mitch Rogovin, who was John Anderson’s team captain, on financial questions.

The foreign policy debate was a classic. Al Haig was captain of the Reagan team with Paul Nitze as his right tackle. Haig’s team ripped Carter’s and Anderson’s teams to shreds. Paul Warnke, who was on Carter’s team, just slunk away at the end.

I learned more from these debates than I did from the candidate’s appearances at the staged non-debates. What happened, unfortunately, was that the two parties decided not to repeat this in future years because it was too freewheeling and not scripted enough.

I’d like to see it done again.