BOCA RATON — Tiny Lynn University will host one of three presidential debates next year. But even if the debate produces a truly memorable moment, it probably won’t be linked in history with Lynn.

“It’s not so much about being on the map for some historical event, because people will forget the next day where the debate was,” says Rob Wild of Washington University in St. Louis, which has hosted three presidential and one vice presidential debate since 1992.

University of Virginia politics guru Larry Sabato confesses he was stumped recently when a student asked where President Gerald Ford defied Cold War reality by declaring “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” in 1976.

Read about Lynn’s preparations and the experience of other schools that have hosted debates by clicking here — and be sure to check out the end of the story to read about memorable debate moments and where they took place.

A Quinnipiac University poll released this morning showing Democratic candidate Alex Sink pulling ahead in the neck-and-neck race governor’s race for governor didn’t faze her GOP opponent Rick Scott.

At a campaign stop this morning in Vero Beach, Scott dismissed the poll results that showed a flip-flop from just two weeks ago when he was ahead of Sink.

“We’re going to win. We’re doing really well,” Scott told reporters at a rally outside Bono’s restaurant. “If you look at the likely voters and the absentee ballots and early voting, we’re doing really well. We’re doing well. We’re going to win.”

The poll of likely voters was completed on Oct. 24, the day before the final debate that set off a controversy over Sink looking at a text message on a cell phone during a commercial break, breaking the debate rules.

During the debate, Scott chastised Sink for smiling when he challenged her about a $6.75 million fine paid by her former bank for selling investors, many of them seniors, risky investments. Sink and the whistleblower who filed the lawsuit said Sink had nothing to do with the problem although she was head of NationsBank’s Florida operations at the time.

George Kopacz, in the crowd of about 300 supporters at the breakfast rally, said Sink’s demeanor during the debate pushed him to vote for Scott.

“It was the smile. It was dishonesty. She didn’t want to defend herself,” Kopacz, the Vero Beach retiree said.

Kopacz said he is an independent who voted for President Obama in the last election.

“I made a mistake. Like everyone else,” he said.

Scott’s week-long tour takes him to Melbourne, Titusville, Ocala and Gainesville later today. Sink will be in West Palm Beach, Lake Worth and Miami.

Rick Scott’s campaign staff quietly passed out black index card boxes labeled “Sink” to reporters biding their time until tonight’s gubernatorial debate kicks off at Nova University at 7 p.m.

“Sink has long been one of those behind-the-scenes players whose money and Rolodex help get people elected,” reads a quote from the St. Petersburg Times from 2002 taped to the top of the box.

Inside, Alex Sink’s fake files include a variety of familiar names and their pseudo-associations to Scott’s Democratic opponent.

“Barack Obama” is listed as Sink’s “chief policy advisor.” Bill Clinton? Her “finance and policy advisor.” Sink’s husband Bill McBride is included as “hubby and chair, Trial Lawyers for Sink.”

The candidates will go mano-a-mano live for the first time this evening at the debate hosted by Leadership Florida and the Florida Press Association.

At their only previous debate, a taped Univision event earlier this month, Scott’s campaign staff handed out whoopee cushions before the match began.

Scott and Sink will go at it again for their second live debate on Oct. 25.

There either will or won’t be a debate between chief financial officer candidates Jeff Atwater and his Democrat opponent Loranne Ausley.

Ausley, a former state representative from Tallahassee, has made much of Atwater, the outgoing Senate president, avoiding a debate in the statewide race.

She held a press conference in Tallahassee this morning Florida demanding that Atwater agree to a debate before the Nov. 2 election.

“I’m running to clean up the mess in Tallahassee, not to hide from problems, duck debates, and refuse to be held accountable,” she said.

Hold on, Atwater’s campaign insists. The North Palm Beach banker’s campaign spokesman Brian Hughes said they had agreed to an Oct. 21 debate at Univision but Ausley backed out.

“As for the issue of a debate, the facts are as I laid them out to you. She needs to tell you guys why she said no the the 21st. We accepted one date Oct 21) that they’ve said no to because of schedule. (Univision) They accepted one that we couldn’t do because of schedule (Leadership FL/UofF). Now, they’ve accepted an alternate date at Univision and we’re seeing if it will work,” Hughes said in an e-mail.

The upshot is that the duo may take part in a verbal duel on Oct. 28 sponsored by Univision.

With two of the three GOP Florida Cabinet candidates refusing to participate in a debate next month, organizers had no choice but to cancel the event.

Attorney general candidate Pam Bondi and Senate President Jeff Atwater, the Republican nominee for chief financial officer, would not agree to debate their Democratic opponents, Florida Press Association president Dean Ridings said today. The press association and Leadership Florida had planned to host the Oct. 5 event at the University of Florida.

GOP agriculture commissioner candidate Adam Putnam was the only Republican who signed up for the debate, Ridings said.

“Pam Bondi and Jeff Atwater would not confirm. We are pretty much at the deadline. And every indication was that they would not participate,” Ridings said. “It didn’t make sense just to do the one” debate, Ridings said.

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Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink will release her and husband Bill McBride’s tax returns for the past five years next week.

Sink, the Democrat’s nominee for governor, is challenging GOP opponent Rick Scott, the self-made billionaire who made his fortune in the health care industry, to do the same.

Scott, who self-funded his primary campaign against Attorney General Bill McCollum, refused to release his tax returns when McCollum challenged him to do so earlier this summer.

Meanwhile, Scott has agreed to two debates next month with Sink, who asked for five debates before the Nov. 2 election.

Scott agreed to a debate Oct. 20 in Davie sponsored by Leadership Florida and the Florida Press Association and another on Oct. 25 in St. Petersburg sponsored by the St. Petersburg Times and CNN and moderated by CNN host John King.

Ok, so you could argue that the best exchange was the question (Listen here) about who their favorite sports team were (Rick Scott and Bill McCollum both mentioned Marco Rubio, which we’re pretty sure is a squad in the English Premier League…)

But in an otherwise freewheeling, action-packed debate on Thursday, moderator John Wilson gave the two Republican gubernatorial candidates the most room to debate a point over taxes and fees.

The question started out about the barrage of negative ads the two have been unleashing on each other, but quickly devolved into the most heated back-and-forth of the evening.

Listen here

For our recap of hour long debate, click here.

To watch the station’s highlights, continue reading.

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Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott, who in June demanded four debates with primary rival Bill McCollum, missed a 5:30 p.m. deadline on Thursday to accept the terms of what would be the rivals’ only meeting to be televised statewide.

“You might conclude as I have that Scott chose not to participate,” Florida Press Association CEO Dean Ridings said. “I’m not sure what the hangup was. The campaign would not officially discuss it.”

Scott and McCollum are scheduled for two debates: one on Monday at the Univision studio in Miami and the other Thursday at WTVT in Tampa. The Univision debate will air at 11 p.m. on the network’s stations in Miami, Orlando and Tampa. It was unclear if the WTVT debate would air anywhere outside of Tampa.

A third debate, hosted by the Florida Press Association and Leadership Florida, was scheduled for Aug. 11 in Orlando, but was moved to Jacksonville at the request of the Scott campaign. Scott’s camp then asked for the debate to be moved out of a TV studio and into a setting that would accommodate a large audience. The two host groups said they did not have the time or resources to grant that wish.

Ridings confirmed the groups were discussing another option, but would not announce anything until at least Monday.

But The Post has learned there are discussions to return the event to Orlando as scheduled. If Scott does not attend, McCollum would still field questions. One option being considered is for the panelists to use information from Scott’s previous interviews with newspaper and TV reporters to portray his position on issues. That raises the question, however, is McCollum would have to debate his own previous statements to the media.

Republican gubernatorial candidates Bill McCollum and Rick Scott confirmed on Friday they’ll hold at least two debates before their Aug. 24 primary, setting up early August showdowns that could reshape their race for the GOP nomination.

Story here.

All of this took place before our esteemed panelists got to the third question of the debate.

For a recap of the entire debate (eventually there was some talk about policy for those interested in that kind of thing), click here.

And if you’d like to relive all 90 minutes, click over here.

The candidates are here and we’re about to get started.

You can watch the live stream and live tweets by clicking on here.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene’s campaign spokesman Luis Vizcaino responds to the Kendrick Meek campaign memo this morning:

“Kendrick Meek led the people of Florida over a cliff when he sponsored homeownership fairs entitled Ten Weeks to Homeownership that targeted first-time home buyers essentially persuading people to take-on risky loans that they could not afford. And now, in a desperate attempt to save his failing campaign, Meek tries to place blame elsewhere for the thousands of people that lost their homes, when he should be looking in the mirror.

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UPDATE: Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos just e-mailed: “After Sunday’s strong performance, Marco looks forward to debating Charlie Crist again, whether it’s in the GOP primary, or in the general election with Crist running as an independent.”

We have yet to hear back after several inquiries to Marco Rubio‘s campaign about whether Rubio wants to wait until May for a second debate with Charlie Crist. (AP‘s Brendan Farrington tweeted Sunday that Rubio wants to wait until after both candidates officially qualify for the race, which can happen anytime between noon on April 12 and noon on April 30.)

Such a tactic enables Rubio to fan speculation that Crist will either abandon the race or switch his party affiliation. But it’s also a departure from his position in June when Rubio called for about a debate per month before the primary. “One debate is not enough,” Rubio wrote at the time.

Crist, who has repeatedly denied any plans to switch parties, accused Rubio of trying to “run and hide.” Of course, Crist didn’t show much interest in lining up debates before the roles reversed in the race and he was cast as the underdog.

“This is a guy who says he’s willing to stand up to Barack Obama, but he won’t sit down with David Gregory on Meet the Press?” Crist said in an interview, referencing an invite Rubio declined for the NBC show. “The hypocrisy and inconsistency from Marco Rubio is appalling.”

The campaign for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio is attempting to set expectations for the debate this Sunday with primary rival Charlie Crist on FOX News Sunday (reminder: that’s 11 a.m. on the local Fox29 affiliate in West Palm Beach, not the cable channel).

In the press release, the campaign listed some “facts about Sunday’s debate.”

It’s Rubio’s first statewide campaign, his first campaign debate ever and his first debate on a nationally televised Sunday show. Meanwhile, Crist is an old pro at these: It’s his fifth statewide campaign and he’s has participated in “numerous” debates.

But a series of old e-mails from the Rubio campaign paint a little different picture of Rubio’s ability.

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Gov. Charlie Crist’s U.S. Senate campaign has responded to former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio’s request for 10 debates in their Republican primary campaign:

“Gov. Crist looks forward to debating all of his primary opponents at the appropriate time, but he still has an important job to do, as the Governor of Florida. After preparing for the legislative session and a possible special session on SunRail, he hopes for an agreement on a suitable amount and possible dates to debate.”

Note that Rubio isn’t mentioned by name, but lumped in with the rest of the GOP field. While there’s no telling who will actually qualify for the ballot next year, the Florida Division of Elections lists eight Republicans currently running for the Senate seat: Crist, Rubio, Shawn Teeters, Belinda Noah, Bob Coggins, Gwyn McClellan, Marion Thorpe and former New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith.

Republican Marco Rubio this morning challenged Gov. Charlie Crist to a series of at least 10 debates before their GOP primary contest on Aug. 24, 2010.

From Rubio’s letter to Crist (which you can read here):

As you approach your third decade in elected office, you have fostered a reputation as a formidable fundraiser who has broken many of Florida’s fundraising records. I am sure this campaign will be no different and fully expect that I will have to work twice as hard as you to remain competitive. While we are opponents for the same office, I am also confident we can maintain a cordial and respectful debate that will help our campaigns rise above the typical 30-second commercials, slick slogans and bumper stickers that define too many of our country’s political contests.