Singer: It sounds like you made the determination that it was worth it to give up the sure thing of being in the majority and being on the Appropriations Committee, which you worked very hard to get on. Do you think that being a junior member in the Senate will be worth it in terms of what will have to be foregone to make that race?

Udall: Yes, I do will think it will be worth it. For me this is about service rather than ambition. We've always had a tradition in our family that goes way back through grandfathers and great grandfathers of fine public service, of serving the public. My grandfather used to say that if we don't have good people in public service the scoundrels will take over and you'll get second class leadership. And I always talked to my constituents about that and say, "This may look unattractive, this public service, but it's very, very important for some of the best and brightest to get into this because we want to have first class leadership all the way from running our country to running our states and local government.

Singer: Now this is a complete non sequitur, but we're seeing so far in the race - even before you got in the race - a negative campaign in the Democratic primary. A lot of primaries you don't see negative campaigning at all. But when you do see it, it tends to be towards the end of the campaign. Were you surprised by the mudslinging even before you made a decision to get in the race?

Udall: I believe that the American people and New Mexicans don't like nasty campaigns. And we've had some of my opponents get very nasty and say that they're going to run nasty campaigns. And my response has been I think you're going to see a very bad reaction from New Mexicans to this kind of campaigning. People don't link mudslinging. They don't like that. They don't like the feeling about it. They don't like the failure to have any positive vision.

What I'm going to try to offer is a positive vision for communities in New Mexico, talk about the things that we can really do working together. I've viewed my job in the House of Representatives as being empowering communities to fulfill their dreams and working with those communities on specific issues to see that they get things done. That's what people want out of public servants.

There are others out there that want to demean the whole process and demean the system. I find that a very sad commentary on our political life nowadays and I wish we could focus more on the positive. And in fact the best advice my father gave me was just to be positive and work hard, and the best will work out for you. And he just told me that recently.

Singer: So how does that principle play out in a Democratic primary on your campaign? What does your campaign look like in the primary? What types of issues will you be speaking to? How will you be reaching the hearts and minds, as it were, of the Democratic primary electorate in New Mexico?

Udall: One of the ways is that many that vote in the Democratic primary are activists, and they're people that care about the party and care a lot about the future of the country. And that group that I talked to you about earlier, that I spoke to, the central committee, these are some of the key activists. And I went before them and talked to them about my early vote on Iraq of denying President Bush the authority to go forward with his ill-advised and misguided war in Iraq. At the time that wasn't very popular. But I stood up and I made the case, and I continued to speak out, and I'm speaking out today, and it's one of the reasons why I'm running for the United States Senate.

That is something that I think had captured the imagination of many of these hardworking Democrats in New Mexico. They see me as a stand up person. The same is true for the PATRIOT Act, the vote that we took on that where they rushed the bill through and trampled on Americans' constitutional rights. That wasn't very popular at the time, but I think the American people have come to realize that it wasn't very smart to cut the courts out of our important checks and balances governmental system that we have. All of these kinds of issues... The eavesdropping on the American citizens that has happened with this Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act. And how President Bush has just launched out to do these kinds of things without, in many cases, having authority or going outside of the law. And people see this as a threat. They want someone to stand up and restore their constitutional rights and I've been doing that.

When you look at it in terms of a primary, I think people are going to say, "Who has the experience? Who's shown that he or she is a stand up person? Who is out there working hard to make a difference?" And they see the record over nine years. I think that record is going to make a difference in this primary. And then whatever I articulate for the future they're going to care about that, too, where this country needs to head, the new direction we need to move in, and the frustration that people have with... We haven't been able to get it done after the election in 2006, so we have to work all the harder to get people in that will make the difference in 2008. That's what I think it's going to be.

Singer: Let me ask you about the substance, or perhaps lack thereof, of one of the charges leveled against you. And maybe I'm misstating it, or not stating it exactly perfectly, but it has to do with funding of the Los Alamos national laboratory. Is there any there there? Is it a fair charge to say that you didn't work sufficiently hard to secure funding? What's your response on that?

Udall: I don't think there's anything there. My vote in the House of Representatives on the floor on the bill was about the jobs of the future for Los Alamos. That's what I was focusing on. There was $600 million of new money for energy efficiency, for energy renewables, dollars to go towards moving us on a path to energy independence. This is one of the biggest issues facing the country, and our national labs in New Mexico can play a big part in that. Los Alamos specifically could play a big role in that if we had leadership at the top of the lab trying to move it in a new direction. And we actually saw our other lab move dramatically from 75 percent weapons work down to 50 percent, and diversifying and building a job base.

That's what I've been talking about to the people in Northern New Mexico. And I think they understand it and are very excited about the idea that their lab in their community could make a big difference in some of these issues that face us. So I don't think there's much there. I'm happy to debate it and discuss it and we'll see. That's the great thing about democracy. We'll see how it turns out. And I'm glad you're a part of it.

Singer: Moving forward, of course you don't want to look too far ahead, but as someone who has run and won two successful statewide bids for Attorney General within New Mexico, how does that prepare you for the campaigning statewide? A lot of people think that maybe moving from the House to the Senate is more difficult, but you have statewide election experience. What did that teach you?

Udall: I served two terms as the state Attorney General. In my job I chose to travel widely in New Mexico. We had a state plane available to us, and so we would have some of my division directors... I would always make it known several weeks before we were traveling so that others in the office could do work in a variety of communities in New Mexico. And we'd take off very early in the morning and come back pretty late at night and get a lot of work done.

One thing I learned is that it's a big state. There's a lot of diversity. Even in a fairly fast plane it takes you an hour from the center of the state, the state capital of Santa Fe, it takes you an hour in almost any direction to get out to the far reaches of the state. In order to represent the state you have to travel a lot. It may be by train, it may be by car. But all of these communities are wonderful communities that are engaged in a variety of ways with the federal government in some cases. There are three military bases in New Mexico, two national laboratories. We have a diversity of other kinds of industry and businesses, many small businesses. We don't have many large Fortune 500 type of companies. We do have Intel, and Intel has been a major player in my Congressional district, and we have some wonderful people working there.

So what you end up learning is you learn the whole state, you understand the state, you understand what the needs are. And that helped me, in my eight years as Attorney General, understand what people want, and I'm going to step up to the plate and try to help them fulfill their dreams and empower them to work hard to fulfill their dreams.

Singer: Just a final pair of related questions that take a little more of a national focus. A lot of people are looking at the polling from this race, they say, "Gosh, Tom Udall is already up 20 points. Why should we get involved? Why should we care?" So if you could address that, and as well, if there's a specific message to the netroots, to the progressive blogosphere nationally that you'd like to get out, what would that message be?

Udall: I think one message that would be important, you mentioned the idea that I'm being attacked and this may be unfair, and I said in response, "This isn't the way campaigns should be run."

I would hope that people would step in from the netroots and participate in this and show the public, show everyone that's running for office that the way to run for office is be honest on the issues, be forthright, run a clean campaign. That's the way we clean these things up.

So one of the messages would be, you can step in and call things, whether it's fair or not, whether it's an honest attack or not. Those kinds of things. And you can make a difference. I've seen that happen and I think you're very, very good at that.

My other message, though, is about moving the country in a new direction, trying to push forward the things we wanted in 2006 that the President and the minority in the Senate have blocked. And I think that one more seat in the Senate could make a difference on issues like Iraq and reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, restoring our freedoms under the PATRIOT Act, and getting healthcare for all of our citizens, starting with the children and then moving on to coverage for everyone.

Those are two important messages that I think you can make a difference on, two important issues I think you can make a difference on.

Singer: Terrific. Well thank you so much for your time and have a good time barnstorming the rest of the state.

Udall: Thank you Jonathan. We're going to have three days of just absolute joy, flying around the state, visiting with people, and I really appreciate being on your blog.

[THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. NOTE THAT THE SMALL TALK AT THE BEGINNING AND END OF THE INTERVIEW HAS NOT BEEN INCLUDED HERE BUT IS A PART OF THE AUDIO.]