So, I’ve been thinking more about the “Brown and Black” forum from the other night. As with the other debates (or forums or whatever you want to call them), they all but ignored Dennis Kucinich, and, to a lesser extent, Bill Richardson (Mike Gravel wasn’t there). They mostly focused on the “top” two or three, as usual. Now, you can tell me that DK and the others aren’t very likely to win, and I suppose that’s true enough. But it’s very important to hear what these other folks have to say, if for no other reason than to keep the others honest (for lack of a better term, since there’s not a whole lot of honesty to go around with the top two, IMHO). Besides, why should polls that are taken way before anybody casts a vote determine who we hear from? Shouldn’t we hear from everybody first, and then see what the polls say? The media shouldn’t be the ones to determine who the “top” candidates should be.

Then again, eight people on one stage for an hour becomes pretty ridiculous. Very little of substance is ever said, as the “frontrunner” tries to say nothing in as many words as possible, and everybody else competes to have the best soundbite. So, here’s what I think they ought to do. Have real, two-person debates, in kind of a tournament setting. Kind of like the World Cup, or the NCAAs. If you want to use the polls to rank the candidates, fine. Then #1 debates #8, #2 goes against #7, etc. Frankly, I’d love to see the “frontrunner” hold her own with Dennis Kucinich on Iraq, single-payer healthcare, you name it.

And while we’re at it, we might as well just go ahead and have a national primary. Everybody votes on one day, and the winner is the winner (let’s have instant runoff voting while we’re at it). But not in friggin’ February. Nine months is too damn long a time to have to put up with these people.

It needn’t be “single elimination,” of course. In fact, since they insist on starting this process so goddamn early, there’s plenty of time to have a round robin, where everybody gets to debate everybody at least once or twice. And never mind having these traditional media moderators, who yack it up and get more air time than the candidates. They’re not running for anything, so they ought to shut the fuck up. Pick a single debate topic (Iraq, Global Warming, jobs, healthcare, whatever; something that’s actually important, as opposed to “diamonds or pearls,” fer chrissakes), and let ’em go at it for an hour.

After a few months of those, I bet you’d see quite a shakeup in the “top tier,” and maybe – just maybe – we’d get some decent candidates for a change.