Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio tangled before a national audience on "Fox News Sunday," and Republicans say the debate reinforced "defining differences" between the U.S. Senate candidates.

It also raised concerns among state party leaders.

A knock-down, drag-out fist fight between Senate candidates Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio on "Fox News Sunday" may make for good network ratings, but what does it profit the Republican Party of Florida?

A bloody brawl might have some GOP leaders nervously clutching their TV remotes. Yet, the increasingly combative race is drawing evermore intense focus on Florida as a bellwether state for the Fall elections coast to coast.

Will Sunday's Fox News showdown between U.S. Senate candidates Gov. Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio be fair and balanced?

Both men are telegenic and smooth -- even slippery in the best political tradition -- and neither camp is losing an opportunity to frame the impact of "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace," which will air live from Fox News' Washington, D.C. bureau (check local listings for times).

The U.S. House siphoned the so-called "Gator Aid" provision out of one health-care bill, but that wasn't nearly enough for Florida business organizations. They remain adamantly opposed to anything that smacks of Obamacare.

The erstwhile proposal by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., would allow senior citizens on Medicare Advantage to stay in the program.

Prior to Sunday's House vote, Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said, "Of the one million or so Floridians participating in Medicare Advantage, about 800,000 are expected to be protected from possible cuts."

But, a negative analysis by the state Department of Education has the measures going nowhere fast.

The battle over political boundaries is heating up, with Democratic-leaning labor unions and trial attorneys helping to stoke the fire.

Fair Districts Florida, which collected enough signatures to place Amendment 5 on the Nov. 2 ballot, wants to re-engineer how legislative and congressional districts are drawn in the state.

If approved by 60 percent of the voters, the measure would:

Florida has whacked its budget by $7 billion over the past three years. That's not just slower growth; that's a real decrease in spending.

Has Tallahassee cut all it can? Gov. Charlie Crist apparently thinks so, because he proposes a $2.7 billion hike this year.