No more lighting rounds. No more asking for a show of hands.

Thursday’s first hour of debate among the Democratic presidential candidates will be broken into eight-minute chunks on specific questions. (For more about the second hour’s format, which will feature questions from Nevadans in the audience, see my story in today’s Sun.)

Moderator Wolf Blitzer will be up on stage with the seven candidates. Panelists Campbell Brown and John Roberts will be sitting in raised seats facing the candidates. Brown and Roberts will throw out a “trigger” question to a particular candidate. For the next 8 minutes the candidates will debate the topic. Blitzer will moderate and ask follow up questions. Candidates can raise their hands if they want to jump in, said David Bohrman, D.C. Bureau Chief and the debate’s producer.

Given the format, there will only be time for seven questions. So the format’s success would seem to depend on Blitzer’s ability to keep candidates from talking over each other and straying from the question to hit their talking points.

The new format, Bohrman said, is meant to offer some depth to the debate and get past sound bites and stump speeches.