DEMOCRATIC DEBATE TAKES A TAMPA BAY TURN...FOR A BRIEF MOMENT

I am just a poor boy from Lakeland, so at present I cannot afford the expense of cable TV. As a result, I didn't get to watch the Democratic presidential contenders debate last evening in South Carolina. Chris Matthews of MSNBC noted the debate was "very civilized" and therefore, not very exciting. But according to the reports I am reading, one of U.S. Senator Barack Obama's responses had a tie-in to the Tampa Bay area.

When the candidates were asked what their biggest mistake was, Obama replied that his was not fighting hard enoungh against the primarily Republican effort to keep Terri Schiavo alive, saying those decisions should be left up to families. Mrs. Schiavo was the Pinellas County woman who suffered brain damage and was kept alive in a persistant vegatative state for 15 years while her husband, who claims she would not have wanted to be kept in such a condition, battled her parents in a series of legal battles which eventually made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court. She eventually died in a Pinellas Park hospice in March, 2005.

So, who do you believe did the best job last night?