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PUEBLO, COLO. -- Colorado's Senate candidates faced off in Pueblo Thursday evening.

Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and Republican Ken Buck met for their third debate, this one at Centennial High School.

The meeting comes as political allies on both sides ramped up attacks about past jobs.

A Democratic-leaning group started airing ads this week attacking Buck for a reprimand he received about a decade ago while working as a federal prosecutor. And a group allied with the GOP has an ad blasting Bennet for his oversight of a pension fund at Denver Public Schools, where Bennet was superintendent.

"About a year and a half ago I started a campaign to earn your support and be your next U.S. Senator," Buck said. "I went to farms and factories, truck stops and coffee shops, and I listened and I learned. I've heard the same thing from countless Coloradans.  Their frustration, their concern, their worry about the economy and jobs, the ability to put food on the table and pay their mortgages.  We have $13 trillion of debt in this country, $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities, we have a $1.4 trillion annual debt, yet we continue to overspend and overtax in Washington, D.C."

Buck went on to criticize Bennet for the way Washington has been spending the money.

"We need jobs, and at the very time people should have been focused on jobs, Michael Bennet and his friends in Washington, D.C. were spending money we don't have on programs we don't need," Buck said.

Sen. Michael Bennet said one of his fondest memories involves Pueblo.

"I was standing in Lake Pueblo to announce that the Arkansas Valley conduit was finally going to real real, and that farmers and ranchers in Southeastern Colorado were going to have clean drinking water for the first time. That was something that had been promised by President Kennedy in 1962 right here in Pueblo," Bennet said. "And it wasn't because I worked so hard for it, although I did, and it wasn't because John Salazar worked so hard for it, although he did, it was because a group of people from this community came to see me when I was first put into this job, and together we were able to accomplish this."

Bennet said everyone needs to work together to better Colorado.

"I've worked very hard to bring Colorado's ideas to Washington, and together we can do the work we need to do to make sure small businesses get access to credit again, and that we commit to breaking our reliance on foreign oil and build a new energy here in Colorado, that the ZIP code you're born into doesn't determine the education you're going to get and that we do take care of this huge defecit and debt that threaten to constrain the choices for our kids and grandkids, and we're going to do that not by calling names, but by working together," Bennet said.

The latest polls show Buck slightly ahead of Bennet.