Teague/Tinsley forum to be televised nationally

Welcome to the big time, Harry Teague and Ed Tinsley. Seizing on the fact that New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District race is hot, C-SPAN plans to televise Thursday’s forum between the candidates nationwide and live.

The announcement, made today by forum host New Mexico First, comes several days after national pundits began realizing that the 2nd District race is a close one.

The hour-long forum begins at 7 p.m. and will be held in the KRWG-TV studio on the New Mexico State University campus in Las Cruces. In addition to being aired on C-SPAN, the forum will be broadcast by KRWG and public television stations in Albuquerque and Roswell. It will also be broadcast on public radio stations across the state.

In addition to airing the forum on television, KNME-TV plans to broadcast it online and make it available for other Web sites to broadcast online. I will broadcast it on this site, so you’ll be able to watch it here live or at a later time if you aren’t able to watch it live.

The forum is being preceded by a town-hall meeting from 1-5 p.m. that will be attended by several dozen voters from throughout the district. They will discuss the issues they want the candidates to address. During the forum, participants in the town hall will become the studio audience and ask their questions of the candidates.

This is one of two forums for New Mexico candidates that will be televised nationally in the coming days. U.S. Senate candidates Steve Pearce and Tom Udall will debate live on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.