KRQE - Senate Candidates Udall, Pearce Debate

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KRQE - Senate Candidates Udall, Pearce Debate

Democrat Tom Udall and Republican Steve Pearce battled it out in live televised debate Saturday night.

Both men are running for Sen. Pete Domenici's, R-NM, soon to be vacant seat.

The candidates were questioned Saturday by a group of panelists, and, at times, questioned each other.

A question that stirred up a lot of emotion dealt with privatizing social security. Udall said he's against it.

"I think social security has worked very well since it started, it's something that I want strengthen and grow," Udall said.

Pearce said that improvements need to be made.

"I said must we improve the rates of return, over the history of the social security, we have never got more than one percent rate on our return," Pearce said.

Both of the senatorial candidates voted against the final bailout package, but both had different views on who's to blame.

"Frankly back in July, I think we should have begun to break up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Pearce said. "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are private, they are not agencies, and you put money into those agencies."

"The thing that Steve doesn't seem to understand is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were government sponsored agencies, they were created to keep people in homes, allow them to buy homes. That's the American dream," Udall said.

As for health care, Pearce wants to reinvent Medicare while Udall calls for more preventative care.

"We have to update the Medicare system in order to have the funds to spread all around," Pearce said.

"We call it a healthcare system, we don't have a healthcare system, we have a sick care system," Udall said.

When asked if the Iraq War was a mistake, Pearce said he supports the effort to weed out terrorists in the Middle East.

Udall maintained that the war was a mistake.

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