Cool intellectuals Barack Obama and Mitt Romney face off in freewheeling town hall format Tuesday.

My comments:

Town hall format is, as name suggests, a form (format) of debate resembling public meetings in a city’s town hall in the past. In such meetings, citizens were free to attend and voice their opinions, raise questions and hear the responses from public figures.

The town hall format used in the second presidential debate between the two candidates, President Obama and Governor Romney (of Massachusetts), means that, among other things, this is a more open debate than the usual debates, in which the candidates come with largely prepared answers for largely pre-determined issues. In the town hall format, members of the public could attend this debate and ask them questions directly. And since members of the public may ask any unprepared questions, it poses greater a challenge to the candidates.

In fact, where questions from the public is concerned, it’s anything goes. Hence, the debate is described in the example above as “freewheeling” – likened to a wheel (nobody knows where it rolls to the next moment).

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About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.