The best primary event I witnessed was an ACORN dem primary candidate event in Philly which was mostly audience Q&A. The first reason was that this alerted me to the fact that the banksters were stealing homes long before this was more generally known, but also because it was a liberal audience pressing candidates on liberal issues.
I'm all for Sean and Rush running Republican primary debates, and liberal people running the Dem ones. They're in tune with what the actual voters of such elections are interested in.