Last week's CNN/YouTube debate was one of the worst political debates I've ever seen. And I have some experience in debates: I debated Republican incumbent Chris Shays and Democrat Diane Farrell seven times last year when I was running for Congress. So, what makes a good debate?

Historically, the most influential debate organizers are the League of Women Voters. Even when other organizations host debates they tend to borrow the LWV format and rules. The LWV hallmarks are a personal timekeeper assigned to each candidate—and straightforward questions.

One of the biggest problems of set time limits is leaving a candidate with time remaining after having quickly but fully answered a question. If you have 90 seconds to answer a yes-or-no question on abortion, you are not just going to stop talking after yes or no; you'll probably drift off into your talking points about other issues.

What is even the point of having 90-second responses and 30 second follow-ups? Is our next President going to have to come up with a sound bite to save the free world? A devastating comeback to an insult by a foreign dignitary? A joke during a press conference? None of those traits are what we need in the leader of the free world.

The problem, of course, is how to stop a candidate from rambling on forever. The LWV solved this in an imaginative way using a concept of "cumulative time." Each candidate has, say, 20 minutes for the entire debate to be allocated however they want. If they want to talk at length on a single question, they are welcome to do so. It all comes off the clock. But when those 20 minutes are up, it's over. They won't be heard from again for the remainder of the questions.

So where do the questions come from?

It's really not that hard. There are a handful of issues that voters care about. Let's say somewhere between 5 and 20: Iraq, terror, immigration, taxes, spending, etc. Very few care about the King James Bible or the Yankees. Yet those were centerpiece questions of the CNN/YouTube debate.

If you wanted to, you could write down about 20 questions that were reasonable and interesting and they could be used pretty much without modification for all federal debates. What is your stance on abortion? What should we do about Iraq? How do you feel about gun-control laws? This isn't rocket science.

One gimmick often used is allowing pre-screened audience questions. This format doesn't have much bearing on the questions asked, except for wording, because the organizers will just pick out the best-phrased questions that correspond to the major issues anyway. And it is that difference in quality screening that separates the LWV from the CNN/YouTube fiasco.

Some debates allow live, uncensored questions from the audience, usually at the end of the debate. That is no gimmick. That works. But sometimes the question-asker keeps talking for twenty minutes without a question mark, or campaigns plant questioners. So it is used sparingly.

The structure of presidential debates nowadays basically allow for ad-length responses. There is no room to expound where appropriate or be curt if need be. That's a failing of the presidential debates because the LWV was essentially kicked out of organizing the presidential debates by government fiat. In 1988, the Commission on Presidential Debates was formed as a bi-partisan (not non-partisan) way of letting the Democrats and Republicans control every aspect of the debate, from the composition of the audience to the types of questions that are asked, to the seating, the lighting, and the heights of the podiums. The LWV refused to go along with it, calling it a "fraud on the American voter" and a "hoodwinking of the American public."

Some commonsense suggestions for how to fix the format:

First, implement cumulative time so each candidate has an equal voice. Ron Paul has been the winner of virtually every poll ever run on who won the Republican primary debates, yet he is still allocated only about 10 percent of the time that either Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney get (which those two waste anyway by barking at each other over whether or not illegal aliens worked on Romney's house). The LWV recognizes the impact third-party candidates can have on the national dialogue and are unhesitant to invite serious and committed candidates to their debates, and give them equal time.

Second, select basic questions about the big issues and let candidates talk about them, rather than peppering them with absurdities. One way to do that is to let people vote ahead of time on the questions to be asked, with the results revealed at the time of the debate. But really, there are only about 20 possible questions. Split them into groups of five and hold four debates, organized by subject (foreign policy, education, etc).

For a bigger impact, go online. Post a few big questions and let each candidate post a response. Let users vote for the best questions and answers, and broadcast those pairings on national TV. At first, it seems this would let candidates talk to their handlers and advisers to review their answers. But so what? As President, they would consult with their advisers before making a decision or a statement. Why not let them do it now? It would be a better indication of what their presidency might look like and removes any excuses about not having thought something through.

The famous Lincoln-Douglass debates of 1858 were structured so that the first candidate (they alternated who was first across debates) talked for an hour. Then the other would talk for 90 minutes. Finally, the first one would rebut for 30 minutes more. That's it. No pre-set questions. No sound bites. No boredom.

Is it any wonder that their debates became legendary and ours are deleted from memory as soon as possible?