Debates are the grandest way to size up politicians: what they think, how they act under pressure, how they retort spontaneous jabs that get past the moderators. Questions, even if predictable, help set a baseline for a campaign and provide a chance for the electorate to see the candidates in close quarters. It is an opportunity to see which, if any, issues divide the candidates within a party, and a chance for candidates to break out of assumed norms and take risks. Debates are unpredictable, a fact alone that might help encourage the media to turn their attention to issues and away from mere name recognition.

The ever-earlier creeping of the political season can give candidates the opportunity to present full-fledged conceptions of American problems such as violence and work on selling the public on solutions that won't fit into a soundbite. Having the courage to step forward and truly say something means facing the fallout of critics, but only an immature or rapidly diminishing political system can be content with slogans in the place of ideas. Debates can only bring us closer to a campaign that tackles tough concerns, and candidates offered a debate should prove their seriousness by accepting as soon as their campaign manager clears the space.

American politics is impoverished without it.

Adam I. Arenson '00-'01 is a history and literature concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.