Problems with the Presidential Debate Format?

I understand it is difficult when you have three candidates or more but this is the election for the president of the United States. The existence of human life may be resting on his shoulders for these upcoming years as nuclear attack becomes more and more possible.

Another thing I don’t get: why do they play music before the debate, and try and hype it up? The debates look more like just another reality TV show in their format. I understand that they want to bring viewers to the show but at the expense of transforming politics into show business. I think the candidates may be spending more time with their cosmetic people than on thinking and hashing out policy.

Although I am critical of the current process, I don’t want to be self-promoting in any way. I don’t have any brilliant ideas on how we can improve the process, but I do have some suggestions that I believe may help us to pick the best possible candidate to lead us through these problems and to a safer world.

The debates should not be shown on private networks. They should all be on CSPAN. This would eliminate the incentive to make money on the debates so that they can be shown in a manner, which does not transform them into a theatre production.

The debates should range for at least 4 to 5 hours giving candidates time to explain specifically their policies and why they believe in those policies. They should not believe in them because they are republican or because they are democrat. They should believe in them for a specific reason and purpose.

The candidates should all be cross-examined after their speeches and explanations by someone who is purposely playing devils advocate.

An hour should be reserved at the end of the debates for the candidates to cross-examine each other.

I believe that if we make our debates more thorough as such that we will allow a platform for the best candidate to be chosen and someone like George Bush would not be voted into office.

I also recognize a possibility that no one will watch the debates and as a result we will be even less informed. I think Americans who recognize the responsibility they have will watch them. With all our technology they can be tivoed and placed all over the Internet so they could be watched in bits and pieces.

I would be interested for anyone who agrees or disagrees to comment with their suggestions if they agree that this is a problem or if they don’t agree that it is a problem than explain why they don’t agree.