Being a gritty wartime pilot, the senator from Arizona, a strong-willed Republican with snow-white hair, relished his upcoming presidential battle against the handsome, young Democratic senator with the matinee idol good looks.

And so he suggested an unprecedented presidential debate idea: A series of Lincoln-Douglas style debates -- just the two candidates alone on stage. No one else. No news media interrogators, interlocutors or moderators. One candidate would make an opening statement. The other would respond. And the debate would be under way.

Yes, they were polar opposites in all sorts of ways -- in politics, style, appearance and temperament. Yet they found themselves in agreement on this campaign debate concept that would be a demonstration of political civility and deportment in an age run amok with negative politics.

In fact, the idea seemed so sensible that we even proposed to make it a permanent presidential campaign institution and name it after the Republican and Democrat who first agreed to do it.

No, not the McCain-Obama Debates -- but the Goldwater-Kennedy Memorial Debates. For it was Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona who first proposed the idea to President John F. Kennedy in 1963, when both figured they would be running against each other in 1964. According to Goldwater, Kennedy agreed; and of course, the notion became a part of the history that was shattered by an assassin's bullet in Dallas.

But years later, I resurrected the Goldwater-Kennedy Debates concept, suggesting in the summer of 2000 that George W. Bush and Al Gore adopt the idea in their fall campaign. I felt it should become the gold standard of presidential campaigning. Unfortunately, the candidates thought otherwise.

Looking back, I find it amazing that such a fine idea received so little notice for decades. We did not learn of what Goldwater and Kennedy had agreed to do until years after their campaign-that-never-happened. In the late 1970s, Goldwater told the highly respected late Chicago political columnist Steve Neal about it. "Kennedy and I used to talk about running against each other," Goldwater told Neal, then with the Chicago Tribune (and later with the Chicago Sun-Times). "We came to a tentative agreement that would have revived the practice of the two candidates traveling together around the country and appearing on the same platform. I think he would have stuck with the idea. I know that I would have."

In 1988, Goldwater wrote about it in his autobiography: "Kennedy and I informally agreed -- it seems a pipe dream in looking at some of today's negative campaigning -- that we would ride the same plane or train to several stops and debate face to face on the same platform." Goldwater elaborated on the plan in an interview with The Washington Post's Bill Prochnau: "He'd get out in one place and start to debate and I'd rebut him. Then we'd turn it around in the next place. ... It would have saved a lot of money, we'd have a good time, and it would have done the country a lot of good."

Now the idea has surfaced again -- by Goldwater's successor as a white-haired Arizona senator. McCain's media strategist Mark McKinnon mentioned it to reporters on the campaign trail. Both Obama and his top strategist, David Axelrod, quickly embraced the idea.

"I think that's a great idea," Obama told reporters Saturday in Oregon. "Obviously we'd have to think through the logistics on this. Should I be the nominee, if I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that's something I'm going to welcome."

The next morning, Axelrod told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace: "We were encouraged when ... his people suggested that perhaps there would be a series of town hall meetings, joint town hall meetings, around the country to talk about the issues in detail. Let's do that. I think the country's hungry for a serious campaign because these are serious times...We're at war. Our economy is in turmoil....It shouldn't be limited necessarily to three kind of very regimented debates in the fall."

Obama's strategist went on to say that it might be good to start them before the fall campaign. "We ought to begin sooner, and we ought to have a free-flowing conversation about where we want to take this country," Axelrod said. "So you know, we're interested in that proposal and eager to sit down and talk about it."

Soon, maybe even this summer, an historic new show may premier at a television screen near you: The Goldwater-Kennedy Memorial Presidential Debates, starring John McCain and Barack Obama.

Maybe, just maybe, it could be one small step toward a new civility in politics.

(Martin Schram writes political analysis for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail him at martin.schram(at)gmail.com.)