Credit: FOX 13

Health-care executive Rick Scott and Attorney General Bill McCollum, the two leading candidates in a bitterly contested battle for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, probably did little to enlighten Florida voters during a Tampa-TV debate Thursday evening.

With less than three weeks to go until the primary election, and all polls showing Scott ahead, the debate at the studios of WTVT-Fox 13 in Tampa and moderated by John Wilson of that station, proved acrimonious from beginning to end, with both candidates tearing into each other on experience and character. What the Internet-streamed hour failed to flesh out is their differences on the issues.

Wilson didn't help matters, encouraging the verbal slugfest and allowing candidates to repeat charges against each other more than half a dozen times.