The three candidates in the special GOP election in Florida’s 19th congressional district, Paige Kreegel, Lizbeth Benacquisto, and Michael Dreikorn, who called a joint press conference in Naples, Florida, demanding that Curt Clawson answer questions about his association with a known convicted sex offender, were summarily clowned when Clawson crashed the event.

According to the Ft. Myers News-Press, Clawson walked up and said “”Do y’all wanna hear from me?”

Clawson spoke and backed Dreikorn’s call to stop all negative ads, adding that he would like to compare all specific economic and jobs plans.

Both Kreegel and Benacquisto left shortly after Clawson appeared, but Dreikorn stuck around. A source tells the Shark Tank that Dreikorn changed his mind about bashing Clawson, and instead called for a more civil campaign, and refrained from railing against Clawson, as he was originally scripted to do.

The source says Dreikorn realized that this pres conference was not what he was about, and if he would have stuck to the original script, he would have undermined his no-nonsense and above-board campaign, and hurt his political credibility with voters.

“One of the things I’ve been challenged with today is should I even show up for this … I was very, very conflicted. But I decided I needed to do this because we need to stop all this negativity now.” –Michael Dreikorn

Dreikorn even stuck around until after Clawson finished his remarks, and answered questions from reporters, and then said that he ” really didn’t expect him to show up, but I really respect the fact that he did show up.”

“We’ve had enough scandals. These are serious issues … it’s time to get some real answers, to real questions, that people deserve.”-Paige Kreegel

The hyped-up press conference didn’t live up to its billing, the community leaders and law enforcement officials” the original press release stated would be in attendance, were all no-shows.

Clawson, 54, met Borst, 55, in the 1970s and didn’t see him again for decades, he said.

In 2004, Borst pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child, served four months in jail and was registered as a sex offender.

Borst and his wife, a real estate agent, handled the 2006 purchase of the Saratoga Springs, Utah, home, in the same way Clawson uses property managers at many homes he owns. He gave Borst a 30-day power of attorney to handle the transaction, he said.

The home was sold this year to help fund the campaign, “and now months after that I found out there was a crime in the family and there was a family tragedy here that I did not know about,” said Clawson

In a video released earlier in the day by Clawson’s campaign, the mother of the child Borst abused said Clawson “had nothing to do with our private family ordeal.”

His federal financial disclosure form didn’t include the home because it was not an investment property and didn’t receive rental income during the required reporting period. He has three other properties that weren’t on the form for the same reason, he said — and because his accounting firm said it was not necessary, he said.

“We have a very good accountant. My accountant doesn’t make a lot of mistakes,” he said.

The special election is less than two weeks away, and some Floridians living within the district, believe that Clawson may have already sown up the win, but will not discount Kreegel’s, nor Benacquisto’s name recognition and grassroots outreach over the last two months of this campaign.

Don’t think for one minute that his race is over and done with. Kreegel, as well as Dreikorn seem to have benefited from the Clawson-Benacquisto fist fight. Benacquisto herself has been able to gain a lot of traction of late, scoring major political endorsements from Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Rep. Black (R-TN), Rep, Chaffetz (R-UT), as well as several other members of Congress.

Benacquisto has also just received the the News-Press’ endorsement.

Benacquisto’s Palin endorsement upset many grassroots conservatives, who believe that Palin did not fully vet Benacquisto, after it was learned that Benacquisto embraced President Obama’s 2009 Stimulus Act, and worked hard to get to get the federal dollars for the city of Wellington, Florida, when she sat on the Village Council.