Three ways to improve presidential debates

Joe Biden and Donald Trump say they are ready to rumble … again. “I am happy to debate him,” the president told radio host Howard Stern last month. To which Trump, who skipped all the Republican primary debates, replied on his social media platform: “ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ANYPLACE.”

Granted, there is reason to wonder how much enlightenment voters will get from seeing these two standing side by side on a stage. Their first faceoff four years ago ranked as

“the worst presidential debate in living memory,” according to a Post headline. Our Editorial Board called it “a disgrace.”

To refresh your memory of those excruciating 90 minutes, this was the melee in which Trump put in a performance that ranged from rude to unhinged, interrupting Biden practically every time the Democrat opened his mouth. Rattled and exasperated, Biden shot back at one point: “Will you shut up, man?” Moderator Chris Wallace has said he still gets “flashes of PTSD” from the experience.

Still, that spectacle was as revealing as it was appalling. Could there have been any better evidence of Trump’s disregard for democratic values — or prelude of what was to come on Jan. 6, 2021 — than the call he issued for the far-right extremist group Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”?

The Commission on Presidential Debates has already announced a schedule of three presidential debates and a vice-presidential one to take place in the run-up to Election Day, with the names of the moderators and other details to come later. And the truth is, much of this will be decided in negotiations between the campaigns themselves. There is no small chance, for instance, that instead of three debates, there will be only one or two.

But it’s worth hoping that what could come out of this are changes that could make presidential debates more meaningful and update them to reflect the realities of how people decide and cast their ballots in 2024.

Let’s start with when the debates take place. Traditionally, they have come late in the calendar. The one meeting of President Jimmy Carter and Republican challenger Ronald Reagan in 1980 didn’t occur until

Oct. 28 — a mere week before the election. But that was in an era before early voting.

The commission recognizes this, which is why this year’s first debate will be held earlier than ever before, on Sept. 16, at Texas State University. Both campaigns are saying that isn’t early enough; by then, for instance, it is possible, depending on when ballots are finalized, that some voters in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania will already be voting.

Complicating that, however, are the debate commission’s criteria for determining whether any contenders from outside the major parties would be allowed on the stage, as, most recently, independent candidate

Ross Perot was in 1992. In addition to polling at 15 percent in an average of five national polls vetted by an outside expert, a candidate must be on the ballot in enough states to have at least the possibility of reaching the 270 electoral votes necessary to be elected. And in a number of states, filing deadlines don’t occur until 60 days before the Nov. 5 election, which means Sept. 6.

Another thing I’d like to see is the discontinuation of live audiences. They consist of supporters, party officials and donors, who routinely ignore admonitions not to cheer or clap. Debates would be more disciplined and substantive if they were conducted — as was the famed 1960 meeting between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon — in a television studio.

The exception should be the town hall debate, which is scheduled to take place on Oct. 1 at Virginia State University, the first historically Black college or university ever selected as a venue. Candidates cannot shrug off or react with hostility to questions they get from ordinary voters. Which is why whoever is chosen to moderate the town hall would be well advised to take a step back and let the audience hold the candidates to account.

Then there is the always thorny question of fact-checking. Moderators should not carry the burden for this. It is better — and more thoroughly — performed by the media and the opposing campaigns. Today’s audiences are often watching the debates on more than one screen. When a candidate tells a whopper, it quickly catches up with him.

There are plenty of people who argue that presidential debates have outlived their usefulness. But the alternative is the dueling echo chambers that pass for political discourse these days. So mix it up, Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. We’ll all be standing back and standing by.