For a nuanced debate, change the setting

An era ago, in 1988, the inestimable future former Star Tribune letters editor Tim O'Brien and I were writing for the college newspaper at Mankato State. It had been a hot, dry fall, infested with boxelder bugs and, perhaps coincidentally, a presidential campaign.

And an eventful campaign at that. Early front-runner Gary Hart had bet and lost on the notion that the press would overlook his philandering as it had done for so many politicians before him. The Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis, had called a photo op that was meant to present him as a believable enough military leader but instead made him look like a hirsute toddler in a tank. And the Republican nominee, Vice President George H.W. Bush, had proposed to be succeeded as leader-of-the-free-world-in-waiting by the unseasoned Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana. Quayle was about to meet Dukakis' running mate, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, in the year's only vice presidential debate, in Omaha.

O'Brien's idea: That's close. We should apply for press credentials and go.

So we journalistic novices should fake it in order to make it? Well, it worked, and on a gorgeous fall day we rolled 300 miles down the countryside, getting 50 miles per gallon in my Honda CRX.

(Weird tangent: A few years later after the Gulf War, I was sitting at a stop light on the main drag in Sauk Rapids, Minn., in one of the other fuel-efficient Hondas I've owned, when a group of kids in the parking lot of a Taco John's yelled, "Buy American, asshole!" Anecdote offered without comment.)

Anyway, Tim and I settled into pretty good seats in the Civic Auditorium in Omaha as the lights went down and Quayle and Bentsen walked onto the stage.

Now, this was a long time ago. I had the back of my head done up in a chemically permed mullet, and I may, just a time or two in the months prior, have smoked weed. But this is how I remember it:

There was somber dignity to the proceedings that felt odd for an arena but commensurate with the occasion. There were no outbursts during the candidates' exchanges — just polite, often scattered, applause. Only when Bentsen played his indelible "you're no Jack Kennedy" card challenging Quayle's level of experience were there, according to the transcript, "prolonged shouts and applause."

Contrast this with, oh, every debate in the last year, during which even banal pronouncements have been met with Beatles-in-Shea-Stadium-style shrieking.

I am about to reach the main point of this article. I've been meandering toward it, because it's actually pretty simple. And once I lay it out, there won't be much more to say. Thank you for your patience. Here it is:

Imagine two candidates, eye to eye — no audience, no moderator, no 30-second formulas, no interruptions. Just sit them down, get them started and let their discussion go where it may for an hour or more on live television before releasing them.

I think we'd learn a lot.

True, one candidate or the other might have an advantage in such a format. One might be earnest and the other elusive. There might be awkward silences or, uh, weird tangents. But the participants couldn't play to the spectators, and they wouldn't get cut off right when they threatened to become interesting.

And just maybe there'd be nuanced discussion about the differences among us on issues of great importance.

Now, I choose letters and some of the commentaries that appear on these pages, and one guideline to which I attempt to adhere is this: No pie-in-the-sky ideas. If it doesn't stand a chance of being implemented, don't waste the reader's time on it. By that standard, I have no business presenting this proposal, which no campaign manager would accept and comparatively few voters would care to witness. Still …

What say you, Secretary Clinton? Senator Sanders? Senator Cruz? Senator Rubio? Governor Kasich? Trump?

Well, it was worth a shot.

So, getting back to Nebraska: Shaken out by the troubles of our industry, my colleague Mr. O'Brien departed from the Star Tribune in 2010 and now works for the opinion pages of the Omaha World-Herald. I'm doing work here that he once did, and about that, I've one thing to tell you. Readers, I served with Tim O'Brien, I know Tim O'Brien, Tim O'Brien is a friend of mine. Readers, I'm no Tim O'Brien.

But I would whup him in a quiet debate.

David Banks is the Star Tribune's assistant commentary editor.