There were no knock-out punches and, in fact, few memorable moments at all Sunday during the final televised debate between U.S. Senate candidates Tom Udall and Steve Pearce.

That's probably good news for Democrat Udall, who is enjoying large leads in the polls and fundraising in what appears to be a big year for Democrats nationwide. Republican Pearce — like Udall, a current member of the U.S. House of Representatives — needs to shake up the race to pull ahead.

Much of the ground covered during the debate on KOAT-TV — energy policy, the Iraq war, the economic bailout — was previously discussed in the two earlier debates — not to mention umpteen interviews and campaign commercials.

Both candidates voted against the most recent Wall Street bailout bills. Once again, Pearce hammered Udall on supporting a bill in July that provided billions to mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Pearce also said Udall backed bills in the late 1990s, which were passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton, that weakened oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Udall accused Pearce of "mixing up several very complicated votes" and said the Republican was trying to put all the blame of the current economic crisis on Democrats. People in both parties are to blame, he said. He said Pearce has been a consistent supporter of deregulation.

The two also tangled over funding for national laboratories.

Pearce criticized Udall's vote last year for the House Energy and Water Appropriations Act, which would cut about $400 million from Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories compared to the previous fiscal year. Udall said he cast that vote because the labs should be diversifying and doing more energy research and science programs to address national security issues.

But Pearce voted for an across-the-board budget cut for the U.S. Department of Energy, which would have resulted in budget cuts for the labs. As he has in the past Pearce, said his vote was against government waste. Udall called it an "ideological approach" that could seriously hurt LANL and Sandia.

As he's done in previous debates, during several of his rebuttals, Udall began by saying, "Steve, you know better than that," or similar words.

Udall has the habit of praising panelists for asking "an excellent question."

He also left unrebutted some Pearce charges, which he's tended to do in the debates. One of these, made by Pearce in his opening statements, was about Udall voting against a bill to protect children against pornography. (Last week, a Udall spokeswoman told The New Mexican he voted against that measure because it was "vague" and "unconstitutional.")

Pearce has the habit of describing certain pieces of legislation he disagrees with by alleged attributes that make the legislation virtually unrecognizable to casual listeners. For instance, on Sunday he said Udall voted for "a plan to kill one of the Big Three auto manufacturers." He was referring to a bill that would have mandated higher gas-mileage standards in cars.

Udall asked Pearce why he chose the issue of withdrawal timetables in Iraq to buck Bush. The administration is negotiating a security plan with Iraq that would entail a withdrawal plan for U.S. troops.

"Tom, you talk a lot about the 91 percent of the time I agree with President Bush," he said. "I agreed with him on naming the post offices. Those are a large part of what we do. Both parties in Congress do that, and you know yourself that that's true." Pearce then listed several substantive issues on which he agreed with Bush, including the USA Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows government to eavesdrop on phone calls of Americans suspected of communicating with terrorists, and Bush's tax cut.

He didn't directly answer Udall's question about why he disagreed with Bush's position, but said, "If the generals support a timetable, I'll support it."

Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com.