It's been a spirited summer campaign for the four Republican men who want to have the opportunity to face Democrat Kathy Castor in the heavily Democratic Congressional District 11 race come this November.

Although it's been little reported, Castor herself faces a Democratic primary next Tuesday in the person of the Tea Party inspired candidacy of Tim Curtis, as she sat on the dais for the first time against those five men who all want  her job at at Tiger Bay event at the Straz Performance Center Friday afternoon.

Those five men spent most of the near hour and a half bashing Washington, something they've been doing frequently on the campaign trail, but never in front of the incumbent herself.

Tony Buntyn did take the most direct shots at the Tampa Democrat, prefacing that his remarks were not personal, but were factual, repeating the National Journal ranking of Castor as the 9th most liberal member of Congress.

"2010 is a different year in politics," Buntyn said, referring to how Republicans could do better than expected in the district, which is heavily weighted towards Democrats by party registration.  "The 9/12 and Tea parties have got a lot of people off their couches.  They're not just sitting by and watching," he warned.

When it came to education, the candidates all spoke about wanting more local control of funding, but none went as far as Bentyn who argued for the elimination of the Department of Education.  "I believe in personal responsibility," he said.  "Take responsibility for your own community."

Tommy Castelllano followed up by saying he didn't see the Department of Education going away "anytime soon."

Mike Prendergast solemnly said that "Tampa is in great trouble, and we are running out of time," before reading a litany of depressing statistics about the dismal state of unemployment in the Tampa Bay area.

Trying to remain above the fray was the local Democrat, who had plenty of family and campaign staff seated near the dais, in what had to be one of the Tampa Tiger Bay's largest attended events in some time.

The Castor opponents split when asked if they support Congressional legislation that would loosen travel restrictions to the Communist island, as well as their thoughts on the fifty year embargo as well (Castor has been a big supporter of loosening those restrictions, as well as trying to secure direct flights from Tampa to Havana).

Tommy Castellano, who has been endorsed by most of the major publications in the Tampa Bay, said he supported more travel with Cuba, saying that the embargo "hasn't worked," and that he'd like to open up trade barriers with Cuba.  Eddie Adams agreed, mentioning how the embargo has hurt the citizens of Cuba.  Conservative Democrat Tim Curtis said he would not normalize relations with the Castros, but said it wasn't about them, but in fact the people of Cuba, and therefore it was "absolutely a good idea.  We have to adjust our strategy."

Tony Bentyn and Mike Prendergast said they both opposed opening up relations with Cuba, as long as Raoul Castro remained in power.

Perhaps most controversially, the two Republicans who had just recently finished their military service, Prendergast and Bentyn, said that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003 when the U.S. went to war.

This article appears in Aug 19-25, 2010.