The four Republican candidates for U.S. Senate generally agree on most issues facing the nation, with a couple of minor exceptions, and spent most of a debate on Thursday directing most jabs not at each other but at Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, President Barack Obama and former Gov. Charlie Crist.

The four – Senate President Mike Haridopolos, former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, former state Rep. Adam Hasner and retired Army Col. Mike McCalister – spent more than an hour and a half staking out positions generally in line with the Republican mainstream in the Senate, from a strong opposition to the federal health-care law, to the general consensus that the federal government spends too much, to toughening the stance against illegal immigrants.

While clearly trying to distance themselves more from better known fall guys like the president and Nelson than from each other, a couple in the field also are trying to hook their star to another that’s on the rise with the GOP voters they’re courting: that of Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. Several of the candidates pointed to Rubio’s positions when explaining where they stood on a number of issues.

The overriding theme was that the federal government spends too much and, above all else, the nation must reduce its deficit. LeMieux said the spiraling federal deficit is “the No. 1 threat to America,” and said he has a plan to eliminate it, simply returning all federal spending to 2007 levels across the board.

Most of the policy promises were broader, however, though partly because of time constraints.

McCalister, a political newcomer of sorts, particularly compared to the other three, at first gave a muddy answer on dealing with runaway spending, saying “we’re going to have to protect our entitlements,” such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, but then saying the nation needs to change the way those programs are managed.

McCalister, who finished third, but with a surprising 10 percent of the vote in last year’s gubernatorial primary, then got more specific on the budget, saying he supports a recent proposal by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, a redesign of Medicare that has been blasted by Democrats and many seniors – though McCalister said he would support some unspecified tweaks to the proposal.

Others on the stage at the annual meeting of the Florida Press Association and Florida Society of News Editors in St. Petersburg also acknowledged that keeping entitlements the same as they are now simply isn’t realistic.

“Eighty-five percent of the budget is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and defense,” said LeMieux. “So that’s where the cuts are going to come. ... So everyone’s going to need to tighten their belts.”

Haridopolos also suggested a major change for an expensive entitlement program – arguing that the federal government should award block grants to the states to pay for the Medicaid health care program for the poor, rather than requiring certain coverages. Haridopolos noted the Legislature, under his leadership, has already pushed Washington for such ability.

There was a bit of an effort to remind Republican voters of LeMieux’ connection to Crist. LeMieux was Crist’s chief of staff when Crist was governor and worked for him in the attorney general’s office, as well as orchestrating Crist’s successful run for governor in 2006.

Hasner was the first to bring up the connection, though subtly. Hasner, a former GOP majority leader in the House who has made opposition to cap-and-trade policies one of his main issues, said that the energy and environment policies in Crist’s administration were the same as policies pursued by the Obama administration.

Crist and LeMieux were once closely linked, but Crist became a Republican pariah when he left the party to run for the U.S. Senate as an independent, losing to Rubio. LeMieux didn’t support him after that.