[EM] Presidential debate ordering

[mrouse1 at mrouse.com]

A few days ago, we had the Republican debates on TV, and I came to the
conclusion that having ten people on the stage at once was an unmanageable
mess. At thirty seconds per answer, candidates were limited to faux anger
and soundbites, while the cheers and applause gave it a gameshow feel.
(Well, okay, so it was better than the debate on MSNBC, where you had
questions like "What do you hate most about America?")

What I'd like to see is one-on-one, round-robin debates. Now, we could
pair up the candidates randomly, but where is the fun in that? What I
thought might be interesting is to have each candidate pick the order he
wanted to debate every other candidate, and choose the order that best
matches the aggregate preference. Unfortunately, I am not certain the
fairest way to piece together incomplete debate orders (each candidate
would have nine debates, but the total field would have a total of 45
debates).

Anyone know the best way to do something like this? It would be similar to
scheduling a baseball season or other sporting event, so it would seem to
have a use beyond just debates.

Thanks!

Michael Rouse