I posted the interview I conducted with Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Pearce last week. This week, I’m passing along my interview with his Democratic opponent, Tom Udall, an excerpt of which was broadcast on Friday night’s “New Mexico In Focus” on KNME. The unedited version is posted below.

Check it out if you’d like to hear an extended give-and-take with the man who sure looks poised to be New Mexico’s next Senator.I did my best to ask him a few questions that Pearce might have put to him. (Of course, people can always disagree as to which questions are best to ask in such a setting, and have good reasons for doing so.)

My favorite part of the Udall interview, you ask? Easy. It was the Santa Fe Democrat’s answer to the very first – admittedly softball — question I asked him.

Q: Why do you want to be a U.S. senator?

A: “Well, I want to be a U.S. senator to really get into the earth of New Mexico and help it grow.”

I have no idea what exactly that means. But it sounds deep and ultra-green all at the same time.

Another interesting part is when Udall, a former state attorney general, won’t venture an opinion on whether fellow Democrat Jerome Block Jr. — the Democratic candidate for the Public Regulation Commission in District 3 — should be prosecuted given his admission to falsifying a campaign finance report.

Prudent legal discretion or excessive political caution? You decide.

The interview with Udall, the Democratic nominee for New Mexico’s open U.S. Senate nmdlcc_mailing,