Did y'all catch last night's one and only U.S. Senate debate between Bill Nelson and Connie Mack? Although observers gave it negative reviews, we're curious if it might boost the Republican's chances in next month's election.
Mack has a lot of vulnerabilities (as does Nelson), but the 45-year-old Fort Myers based Congressman was ready for every one of the Democrat's charges. If he couldn't answer the question, he'd talk about something else. With only a minute and a half to respond in the hour-long format, Mack baffled Nelson by turning around every criticism the Senator threw his way, prompting Nelson to quote the vintage chestnut "there you go again."
We're not sure if the independent, undecided voter was inspired by Rep. Mack's agenda, but they may have come out not so certain about Nelson.
One of Nelson's Democratic colleagues in the Senate, Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, is in Tampa this week. Yesterday, he blasted Republicans in Congress for their intransigence in coming together on a debt-reduction deal.
Yesterday, business icon Charles Schwab spoke in Channelside to about 40 sympathetic small business folks, where he attacked Barack Obama as being incompetent in running the U.S. economy.
And a new poll shows that the two Pinellas County Commission races, and one House race, remain extremely tight.
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2012.