First, a little pragmatism: we will not eliminate money from politics or end a 200-year tradition of partisan eye gouging. But with enough public pressure, the networks might be persuaded to undertake a modest reform this fall that could have ripple effects in later elections.

Paul Taylor is a former Washington Post reporter who grew disenchanted with journalism. Now he peddles idealism for the Pew Charitable Trusts. Taylor and five former network anchors (including Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor), five former party chairmen, four senators (Simpson, Bradley, McCain, Simon) and other assorted enchiladas grandes are trying to persuade the networks to offer two to five minutes of free air time each night to major presidential candidates this October.

“No tricky images. No unseen narrators. No journalists. No surrogates. just the candidates, making their best case to the biggest audience America assembles every night,” the group says.

This is hardly a bomb-throwing idea. It’s standard practice in most other democracies in the world, where, not coincidentally, turnout is far higher than the 50 percent of registered voters who vote in this country. When he offered a similar if less ambitious proposal last month, Rupert (“Married … With Children”) Murdoch may have been just looking for a little good PR to cover for the appalling absence of news on his Fox network; he didn’t even commit to running the one-minute freebies in prime time, which all but defeats their purpose. But Murdoch helped kick off debate and tick off other TV titans.

ABC News president Roone Arledge says Murdoch is “just playing games” and the idea is no good, anyway: “To do three minutes a night would just be more of the same–a minor extension of a one-minute commercial.” CBS News president Andrew Heyward says the decision rests at a higher corporate level (the same is true at NBC and ABC), but he argues that viewers will just get “more carefully crafted spinology.” NBC News president Andrew Lack admits to being “cynical about the way the campaigns may use that air time.” Their corporate brethren raise more prosaic questions. Would prime-time shows be shortened, complicating syndication? Would on-air promos get cut, hurting the fall season? Would viewers click to cable? Would minor candidates sue?

But all the network news chiefs readily acknowledge that someth ing must change. Arledge, with his gift for what makes boffo TV, would like to see the candidates put in a room for an hour and told to talk to each other with no moderator at all. (Would Dole get a word in edgewise?) Lack favors several more hours of issue-oriented candidate debate. These are both good–but unworkable–ideas. The candidate who is ahead in the polls almost certainly won’t play. With four fall debates already scheduled, the front runner will, as always, try to minimize additional chances for mistakes.

So that brings us back to the free-time plan, which the candidates might grumble about but won’t dare reject if the networks are patriotic enough to offer it. Think not of the race’s spin but of its spine. Every campaign has a frarne, a structure on which the story sits. Right now, that spine is made up of attack ads, photo cps and evening-news sound bites that have been reduced to a few seconds. What if the October two-minute drills became the new narrative? This could be fresh and even a bit suspenseful. Say on a Wednesday, Dole takes a shot at Clinton on gays in the military. On Thursday, when it’s his turn, will Clinton respond or change the subject? On Friday, will Perot say something nutty? Tune in. If the candidates produce the boring pabulum the TV executives predict, the press will pound them. The campaign would still feature attacks. But because the charges would be leveled by the candidates themselves, the tone would be more civilized. Those slick, paid negative ads would continue but recede in significance.

The great hope is that once free time is established in presidential elections, it will spread to state races, where attack ads aren’t just offensive but often decisive. Because not every candidate in every race can get free time without soaking the stations, the parties would be awarded the time to give to candidates as they choose. This would strengthen parties and weaken the power of money. Even if local free time is impractical, a simpler cleanup could begin in which all candidates are challenged to pledge that any ad attacking an opponent be in the candidate’s own voice. The public message would be clear: if you want to attack, do it yourself-without that “Jaws” music.

Paul Taylor would rather not go the legislative route, and he’s right that stigma and shame work better. But he also knows his timing is good. With the regulatory landscape so unsettled, the networks will be coming to Washington, hat in hand, on communications issues worth billions: “It’s not a bad time to say, “Hey, throw something into the community pot’.” Two minutes for 30 days. That’s an hour of their time for an important civic experiment. “Caroline in the City” would survive.