Though the prospect of watching the 2nd U.S. Senate debate within the last 2 1/2 days, and the 6th of the campaign season was hardly mouth watering, one has to give thanks to low expectations, because the hour long forum in Orlando moderated by Meet The Press' David Gregory was for the most part, a really interesting conversation between these three men who have all become sort of like family members over the past year in Florida.
For one thing, Gregory didn't trot out the same questions that every other moderator has done, instead opening up by talking about the foreclosure crises, and what would they do about it?
Marco Rubio, who on policy showed the surest grasp on the issues, said that there weren't any easy answers, and he wouldn't commit himself to any specific remedies.
Gregory (a/k/a "Stretch," his moniker given to him by George W. Bush) asked Charlie Crist with what should be done with housing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
That allowed Crist to give his first slap of the night to Rubio. First he talked about what he has done as Governor to address property taxes, before slipping in the line that "some of us at this table have close to foreclosures."
Gregory then segued into talking to the Governor about his small little problem with adjusting his positions. Critics call them flip-flops. Crist said with a straight face that he hadn't changed.
Gregory pushed him hard for saying that issues like abortion and stem cell research, which the Governor has said were the reasons why he left the GOP earlier this year, had changed since Crist was a proud member of the GOP, pulling out a copy of the 2008 GOP platform unveiled at their convention in St. Paul.
Rubio said that his policies weren't based on the Republican platform, but then boasted of himself as a man of ideas, 80 of him he said were available to enjoy from this website.
Then some of the usual blather from all the candidates about themselves took over. Crist said "Washington is broken," while Kendrick Meek went into his familiar opening of, "I'm the only one at this table to….."
This article appears in Oct 21-27, 2010.