The Debates - Lets Do Them Better.

 You know what made the Lincoln-Douglas debates so great?

I’ll tell you in just two words - Lincoln and Douglas.

Now for those readers without a great love of history, let me give some perspective.

Abraham Lincoln and Michael Douglas - no, make that Stephen A. Douglas - met at a time of national crisis, probably the biggest crisis ever faced by the United States.

Of course, at the time, we were a nation made up of sovereign states, united in some ways but very divided in others. Bitterly divided. Some even questioned if our nation would survive.

Sound familiar?

Well, let’s look a little closer. I’ll get to the recent debate with all those Democratic candidates in a bit.

First, Lincoln and Douglas weren’t running for President. Not even close. When they met in 1858, three years before the Civil War, they were running for Senator in Illinois.

Because there was no television or radio or internet, there were actually seven debates, so more people could see them. And, the debate was limited to just one subject - the expansion of slavery into the new territories that were sprawling out into the middle of what would become our nation.

The South, which pretty much ran the political machinery of the United States, was slowly losing power to the faster-growing and industrial North, and losing new territories - which would sooner or later become states - meant they would lose control of the Senate. Sound familiar?

As an aside, that format - while not created by Lincoln and Douglas - set the pattern still used today by debate teams in high schools and colleges across the country. One issue, explored in depth. Some high schools still have for-credit courses in speech and debate. None of them strictly follow the Lincoln-Douglas format, which was one candidate speaking for 60 minutes, the other for 90 minutes and the first getting a 30-minute rebuttal.

Imagine talking all that time without repeating yourself or sounding like an idiot. Sound familiar?

By the way, Lincoln lost. Democrats won 54 seats in the Illinois legislature, Republicans got 46, and they chose Douglas for Senator. Lincoln thought his political career was over.

Now, let’s get to the recent Democratic debate. Too many people, all talking for just over a minute on the same thing over and over again. And a format that gave people extra time to respond, which meant that attacking a front-runner meant they got more TV time.

How would I make it better? Well, there were a dozen people talking for three hours. I would put out a table with coffee and pastries and just four chairs.  Then I would put out a list of subjects - climate change, health care, the economy, our relationship with other nations and other obvious things - and let the candidates pick the ones they wanted to debate, from one to six. Ties would be settled by a random draw.

Then they would all sit down, with timers, and start talking. Four people for a half hour is fair. You want to change the time, go ahead. Heck, let the candidates decide how to break it up if they want.

What you would get is a thorough examination of the issues by people who will certainly be involved in charting our future in one way or another. Since they picked their topics, we can assume they know stuff about it and we might all learn something.

And Elizabeth Warren would not be allowed to debate every subject, even though she has a plan for all of them.