Stu Bykofsky: Tonya Harding a no-show at debate

A LITTLE BEFORE 3 p.m. yesterday, Barack Obama's camp shared with reporters a published story that the rest of Hillary Clinton's advertising would be 100 percent negative. If that's accurate, said Obama spokesman Matthew Lehrich, "It looks like we'll see the 'Tonya Harding option' on display at tonight's debate."

Why do you think we're tuning in, Matt?

Well, the ladies of Wisteria Lane returned to "Desperate Housewives" Sunday, and the populist millionaires of "Desperate Candidates" returned last night.

While Philadelphia is younger, wealthier, blacker, more secular and more gun-shy than the "out there" parts of Pennsylvania, our "Rocky ethic" prizes smash-mouth contests. We love the disrespected underdog who takes a shot in the gut but keeps coming. (Under "sports," see "Broad Street Bullies." Under "politics," see "Michael Nutter.")

If Hillary was going to mau-mau Barack, we wanted to see if he could take a punch and if he would pull out a sniper rifle and fire a few warning rounds over her head.

With Hillary's lead crumbling like week-old cheesecake, would she "go nuclear"? Would Barack employ a rope-a-dope strategy and absorb the pummeling to corral the elusive Gandhi vote, or would he throw a haymaker?

Mortgage crisis, education, health insurance, taxes, trade imbalance, guns, imports, immigration are big and complicated and hard to digest. But a barroom brawl? We understand that.

A Barack knockout here would end the endless end-game and silence Hillary's "only I can win the big states" mantra, But if she wins by double digits, then Indiana becomes the next "final decision" state. Or North Carolina. Or Puerto Rico. Or Zambia - who knows any more?

Haven't we been reading about "decisive" elections since "Super Tuesday"? That was supposed to be the end, then Texas and Ohio, now us. The pundits have been as wrong as home-buyers who took ARM mortgages.

Oh! The debate. Tonya Harding was a no-show.

It wasn't the fiery crash we were expecting, very disappointing (to some) for what was billed as (perhaps) the final debate between the last two Dems standing.

I'm guessing it came across like a draw and a snore, but when I saw the "land-mine" questions, my eyes were opened, thanks to cool tech offered with the streaming video on 6abc.com. Along with the video, there was a graph with a trend line that mapped the second-by-second reactions of a group of undecided voters.