As debate scholars, we applaud the June 4 letter from John McCain to Barack Obama proposing an ambitious series of town hall debates prior to the Democratic National Convention. While debates have become routine fixtures in modern presidential campaigns, there are some striking features of the McCain proposal.

Timing alone is noteworthy -- it is very early in the electoral cycle to be talking about general election debates. While novel, the town hall series idea is not unprecedented. McCain's letter cites 1963, when Sen. Barry Goldwater and President John F. Kennedy "agreed to make presidential campaign history by flying together from town to town and debating each other face-to-face on the same stage." Sadly, an assassin's bullet stopped the debate series before it could get going.

It is worthwhile to recover the debate spirit of 1963. As George Faras shows in his compelling book, No Debate, the current presidential debate system is broken. The problem is that the authority in charge, the Commission on Presidential Debates, is beholden to the political parties and mainstream commercial television interests. This skewed situation where the foxes (corporate and political elite) guard the deliberative henhouse has a track record of producing dueling monologue formats, vapid exchanges, and circumscribed citizen involvement. Indeed, the McCain letter decries the "empty sound bites and media-filtered exchanges that dominate our elections."

WE COULD NOT agree more. While this form of sportified debate lends itself to sensationalized media coverage and horse-race handicapping, it does little to resupply the nation's precious reservoir of creative public debate energy. Luckily, this type of energy is a renewable resource that can be restocked by public-driven approaches to debates in this upcoming presidential election and beyond.

If nothing else, the McCain debate letter awakens us to the possibility. Citizens need not settle for a scripted and stale form of presidential debating. Thanks to this opening, voters and venue hosts are now empowered to participate in the grand "debate about debate" -- the discussions that shape the character of specific public debate events.

What is the source of the McCain campaign's new pro-debate drive? It may reflect the rising prominence of John McCain's communications adviser and debate specialist, Brett O'Donnell. As an intercollegiate debate coach at Liberty University, he evinced a strong commitment to public debate, with an admirable focus on expanding student participation rates by bringing new voices into the community.

Early commentary on the town hall proposal has focused on the remarkable way that the McCain letter seems to wrest authority from the Commission on Presidential Debates. It is our hope, now that the two campaigns are engaged in negotiations, that this refreshing call for experimentation and flexibility in the formats and procedures of the presidential debates does not give way to business as usual.

The Obama camp's preliminary response to the McCain town hall proposal seems positive in this regard. David Plouffe welcomed the debate concept and constructively suggested a citizen-friendly, "less structured and lengthier" format, one that "more closely resembles the historic debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas."

OTHER promising format wrinkles might include: