NBC scraps Pearce/Udall Meet the Press debate

Posted 10/09/2008 02:37:00 PM

NBC News has canceled a live, nationally televised debate between New Mexico’s U.S. Senate candidates that had been scheduled for Sunday.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Pearce announced the cancellation today in a news release. His campaign said NBC notified it today that it plans to instead focus its Sunday Meet the Press program on the financial crisis.

In a statement sent to the Pearce campaign, Betsy Fischer, executive producer of Meet the Press, said, “Due to our need to focus the program on the escalating financial crisis, we are going to be unable to host this Sunday’s New Mexico Senate Debate. We hope you understand that as a news program we sometimes have to change our programming plans as major news dictates.”

Pearce said the debate “would have been a great opportunity” and he is disappointed, but pointed out that there are still three upcoming televised debates between him and Democratic candidate Tom Udall.

“We have three televised debates that are going to provide New Mexico voters with a great chance to see the two candidates share their very different views on the future of the country,” Pearce said. “We are working hard and looking forward to those upcoming debates.”

The debate schedule includes a debate on Wednesday hosted by KOB-TV, one on Oct. 18 hosted by KRQE-TV and one on Oct. 26 hosted by KOAT-TV. None of those Albuquerque television stations reaches Doña Ana County, the state’s second largest.

Udall spokeswoman Marissa Padilla said Udall “has been looking forward to debating Steve Pearce on Meet the Press this Sunday.”

“He has been campaigning across the state and talking with New Mexicans about the severity of the current economic situation,” Padilla said. “He looks forward to debating Congressman Pearce on this and important issues during their three additional debates this month.”

When NBC scheduled the Meet the Press debate, pundits considered New Mexico’s Senate race one of the hottest in the nation, but Pearce, after gaining ground in the polls weeks ago, has lost ground in recent weeks. Udall has had a double-digit lead in all recent polls.

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Posted by Heath Haussamen. E-mail him at heath@haussamen.com.  
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At 2:54 PM, October 09, 2008, Blogger Hemingway said...

It is no surprise why Meet the Press is not interested in the debate. Steve Pearce is totally inept. By the way history will show that President Bush, former Senator Gramm and their extreme conservative Republican associates such as Steve Pearce pushed their "deregulation" agenda for the past eight years. Now the country's economics are in ruins. Thanks to these brilliant politicians. In the debate Mr. Pearce would probably cry for more deregulation or blame the Democrats for their failures.

 

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