By Samuel Rubenfeld

The 2008 election season has heated up earlier than any presidential election cycle in recent memory. But you already knew that.

What you may not have known is that the debate season is starting early as well. Last Thursday, the eight Democratic candidates debated at South Carolina State University, a historically black college in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Tonight, the ten (ten!) Republican candidates are debating on the same stage the Democrats took last week.

Thursday’s debate was fast-paced, with no time for meandering beyond the questions asked. “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams moderated the 90-minute debate.

Answers were limited to one minute, with 30-seconds for a rebuttal, if necessary. Some questions were asked that required no answer other than the raise of a hand.Now, I wholeheartedly believe in the art of political discourse, the importance of more voices at the table and all of that, but there are major problems with these debates, which aired on MSNBC.

First, each candidate requires equal time, as well they should. Each voice has equal merit, so each deserves equal time. However, when there are between eight to 10 candidates all clamoring for equal time within a 90-minute timespan, things can get chaotic or muffled. One candidate, former Sen. Mike Gravel (Ala.), complained on MSNBC after the debate that he felt he did not have enough time compared to the other candidates.

Second, the answer window is so small that all the audience gets to hear is a rehashing of talking points. There is no time for the nuance or detail required for a discussion about how to reform healthcare, for example. This gives a much greater advantage to candidates long on vision but short on details, such as Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

Third, the candidates were not allowed to ask each other questions, so there was no real exchange of ideas at all. Isn’t that the point of a debate? Not anymore. Now a debate is a forum and free stage for a candidate to say whatever he/she feels without a challenge.

All of this being said, I still believe these debates are a great thing for the country, for the candidates and for the American people.

But improvements must be made in order to please all involved. Those officially declared as candidates still must participate, regardless of the level of support seen in public opinion polls. For the Democrats, Kucinich and Gravel deserve seats as much as Obama and Clinton. For the Republicans, Brownback and Huckabee need the same opportunity as the McCain and Giuliani.

All candidates must have at least two minutes to answer a question, but that time can be cut to mere seconds at the moderator’s discretion. Moderators have lost all power in coordinating and conducting debates; it is time to give them back that power. Moderators must ensure that candidates stick to answering the question, but not allowing for a rehashing of prewritten talking points.

The candidates must take questions from the audience, but at the moderator’s discretion. This method works quite well in the presidential debates and reactive questions on topical issues from constituents can really put a candidate’s knowledge of an issue to the test. Pre-submitted questions read by a “representative” of the public comes off as cold and calculated. Let the people talk; they are the ones voting, after all.

Candidates must be allowed to challenge and question their respective opponents. If candidates could challenge each other, new and interesting ideas can develop, the American people can see how a candidate reacts under fire, and whether the candidates actually have ideas on how to improve a nation in peril, rather than perfecting 10-second sound bites for the campaign trail.

All candidates from each party should debate weekly on an issue. If the Democrats debated Tuesdays and the Republicans Thursdays, maybe there could be “Issues of the Week” debates. One week could be Iraq, the next healthcare, then Social Security, etc. Instead of giving each issue its ten minutes, this extended investigation might lead to more nuanced and specific answers from candidates. The American people might, for once, get to know what these candidates want to do with their votes.

The obvious criticism to this would be that chaos would ensue onstage, but I think that could be a good thing. The more we see our candidates under fire, the better. The more questions the candidates they get asked, the better.

Remember the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the total entropy (chaos) of any system increases over time. Maybe this law should start to apply to our political process as well, because something new can come from the chaos.