Resident Scholar  Norman J. Ornstein

In 1963, Republican Barry Goldwater talked to Democrat, and incumbent president, John F. Kennedy about campaigning in a different way in 1964. The two agreed to campaign together, on the same plane, touching down in different cities and holding a series of debates--real debates without moderators that would range across all the issues facing the nation. Both felt confident they could hold their own, engage in no-holds-barred, candid give-and-take without losing the fundamental respect they felt for each other or a fundamental civility.

After Kennedy's assassination the proposal was dropped and presidential debates disappeared until 1976. Today they are expected stops on the campaign trail, but in a very different way from what Goldwater and Kennedy envisioned. There are three presidential and one vice-presidential session in the fall campaign, with journalist-moderators and/or journalist-questioners.

The Commission on Presidential Debates does a wonderful, professional job organizing these debates and they have become the most significant focal point for voters. Jim Lehrer, who has become the nation's presidential debate moderator, is superb. But the debates are largely artificial exercises. Candidates prepare intensively and practice pre-packaged answers. Their greatest fear is that they will make one gaffe or verbal stumble that will single-handedly scuttle their chances--like President Gerald Ford inadvertently suggesting in 1976 that Poland was not under Soviet domination. This fear often leads to stiff presentations and stilted answers. The debates are as good as they could be given the limitations, but they are not enough.

The 2008 presidential election is the most wide-open and will be perhaps the most consequential election in decades. It is the first election since 1952 that will not feature an incumbent president or vice president running at any stage. Despite the Democrats' newly found advantage in public opinion polls, the election is far from sewn up.

Voters haven't yet weighed in decisively on the pivotal questions facing the nation: How do we salvage something from the mess in Iraq; what role should the U.S. play in the world; what are the criteria we use to intervene in places like Iran and Darfur; and how do we balance precious civil liberties with the need to protect against vicious terrorist attacks?

We're also faced with questions on how to respond to climate change, how to reduce oil consumption that bankrolls ardent adversaries and how to provide affordable health care to all Americans. We are challenged with federal deficits that could explode with the retirement of the Baby Boomers, and with providing a safety net for workers thrust into an uncertain global economy. Voters will likely want to know how the next president will get the branches of government to work together in an era of partisan tribalism.

The current debate formats don't lend themselves to providing answers to these questions. And all of these questions could use some straight talk, the kind that rarely emerges in pre-structured, formal presidential debates. The times demand something different--the resurrection of the Goldwater-Kennedy idea. To be sure, it is pie-in-the-sky to imagine two presidential candidates agreeing to travel on the same plane, touching down regularly to debate all issues with varied audiences. But imagine a presidential campaign where the two major-party candidates agreed to debate at least once a week from Labor Day until the election--eight or more times. The number of debates is large enough to have many different formats, some with moderators and some without. Some could be focused on single issues or broad topics, like foreign policy; others could have no set agenda. Some could involve questions from journalists; others, from policy or political experts or rank-and-file voters. Some might be just an hour; others could be much longer.

Of course, it would take extraordinary candidates to participate in debates of this sort--just as it will take an extraordinary president to find ways to address these difficult issues. But in Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and others, we have an impressive array of candidates with the intellectual heft, articulateness, policy depth and self-confidence to be able to handle the demands.

How could we ever get candidates to agree to such a challenge? One way is not to wait until the primary processes have played out, the parties have made their choices, and the two campaigns turn to risk-avoidance mode. The commitments have to come now. We--journalists questioning the candidates, editorial writers, voters they meet, donors to their campaigns--could prod this along by demanding that current and potential candidates for the White House agree, if they win the nominations, to embrace the Goldwater/Kennedy plan. Candidates who refuse to do so will have to explain to Americans why they are not prepared to give us full, candid, wide-ranging and open opportunities to hear what they have to say--and to parry the challenges made by their opponents. What have they got to fear? And if they do have something to fear, perhaps they are not up to leading the country through the perilous course ahead.

This kind of campaign would be a sharp departure from the usual. The times demand it.

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI.