Let candidates ask the questions

So, it seems the Republican presidential candidates are unhappy with their most recent debate.
Televised presidential debates aren’t really debates at all. They’re a weird combination of a group interview and a panel discussion.
Candidates use them to push a pre-cooked message. The journalists asking the questions use them to try to cut through the fog.
The net result is that no one wins. And the biggest loser is the voter.
Here’s a modest suggestion.
If we’re going to call them debates, let them debate one another.
How’s this for a format? Each candidate prepares one question for every other candidate on the stage, then after drawing lots, they start peppering one another with queries.
Too chaotic?
Maybe.
But if questions were grouped into specific policy areas — taxes, fiscal responsibility, immigration reform, foreign policy, income inequality, the environment, race relations — it might just work.
And the questions, we suspect would be much tougher.
Imagine Donald Trump having to answer a tough question, and follow-up, from John Kasich?
Imagine Marco Rubio peppering Jeb Bush with questions.
Ted Cruz complained that CNBC’s questioners were turning the last session into a “cage match.” But those questioners were playing softball compared to what other candidates might ask.
The same format could work for the Democrats. It’s likely that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders would have very tough questions for one another.
And when it comes to the general election, the questioning between each party’s nominees would be tougher than any TV journalist could cook up.
And who would be the winner? Our guess is that it would be the voters. — J.R.