Emanuel's harebrained debate idea

I'm not sure what motivated me to follow this link (The Daily Star - "Introduce a new formula for US campaign debates"), but I was surprised to see such an off-base suggestion for Presidential Primary debates from Congressman Rahm Emanuel whom--the author advises us, "was a leading strategist of the Democrats' victory in the 2006 congressional elections" (really? wasn't it folks like Trent Lott that put Dems over the top?). I just came across the same article (here), so perhaps I misunderstimated :) how much attention (undeserved) this idea would get.

The author complains about the current debate structure thusly,

What we have are not so much debates as the kind of inane interviews given by contestants in Miss America pageants. Republicans and Democrats speak to their respective bases, rather than to the nation; most candidates stay within the boundaries of what's deemed to be safe. All Democrats support more rights for gays in the military; all Republicans are opposed. How could we change this, so we have real debates that tell us more about the candidates? What format would encourage sharp discussion about the problems facing the country rather than this empty process of rounding up the usual suspects?

So, Emanuel and the writer propose to have primary debates consist of,

a series of one-on-one face-offs in which leading Democratic candidates debated, not each other, but leading Republicans. That would push the campaign toward the center, where it ought to be. And it might produce a mandate for actually solving problems as opposed to bickering about them.

I'm not sure exactly how such a format would affect the primary process, but I think it would encourage the debates to be less substantive. Certainly the Democrat Party would benefit from a debate which didn't highlight how out of touch their base is, and which allowed Dem candidates to pitch the nice-sounding platform in generalities. Do Hillary and Rudy have different views of the Healthcare issue? Of course they do, and a partisan primary debate format would allow two candidates to talk past each other (and past the issue). We need more particulars to discern between candidates and discern between governing philosophies. Does anyone really think we need more platitudinous, us/them framing of the issues as found in campaign ads?

One effect of having single-party dominance in a county/district (or of non-partisan elections) is that voters have to pay attention to the primary . . . a one-partyish scenario mitigates the effect of lazy, straight-party-line voting because all the available candidates have the same letter after their name.

I think Emanuel's idea is stupid. Not even a spendthrift, unprincipled GOP congress could make him look smart in proposing it. I think I've wasted too much time on this post.