ORONO – The five candidates for governor kept their final televised debate a cordial affair for the most part Wednesday night, clashing only occasionally over state finances and partisanship in Augusta.

When criticism was leveled, however, Gov. John Baldacci, seeking a second term, most often took the brunt of it from the other candidates in the race. At the debate’s outset, independent Barbara Merrill and Republican Chandler Woodcock took the incumbent to task for mishandling the state’s finances.

“The worst judgment that any Maine governor has ever made is signing a budget borrowing a half-billion dollars,” Merrill said during the 90-minute debate sponsored by the Maine Public Broadcasting Network and the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center.

Baldacci was quick to defend his actions, noting that signing the budget avoided a government shutdown and he later signed a replacement budget that included $125 million in cuts while avoiding raising any broad-based taxes.

“We made the tough decisions, and I showed leadership there,” Baldacci told the nearly 500 people who showed up at the Maine Center for the Arts on the University of Maine’s Orono campus.

Maine Green Independent Party candidate Pat LaMarche, while not criticizing Baldacci directly for his fiscal policies, made some general statements of dissatisfaction with Baldacci’s first term.

“I think there are an awful lot of mistakes that have been made in the last few years,” LaMarche said. “That’s why we’re all sitting here.”

Also included in the debate was independent candidate Phillip Morris NaPier, a convicted felon, who energized the young crowd at points when talking about the need to fix the state’s roads and his idea to turn a former state prison into a nudist colony.

The debate comes less than a week before voters head to the polls on Nov. 7, and a new poll suggests Baldacci is holding his lead in the race. The Rasmussen Reports poll released Wednesday shows the Bangor Democrat at 45 percent and Woodcock slipping to 31 percent.

In recent weeks, television advertising has turned decidedly negative in the race, pundits note, prompting Woodcock to ask Baldacci during the debate to “reconcile the actions of his party.”

Baldacci said while he did not condone any “harmful activities,” he saw nothing inaccurate about his Democratic Party raising the salient issues. He also noted that the Republican Governors Association had to revise its ad attacking him.

Merrill, who has stressed her independence in the race, said that voting for either Baldacci or Woodcock would only reward negative campaigning and the partisanship that has plagued Augusta.

“It’s clearly going to be setting the stage for more partisan gridlock,” she said.

Woodcock later took Merrill, a longtime Democrat, to task for dropping her party affiliation only to run for governor. Merrill, a first-term state representative from Appleton, said she left the party because she tired of “partisan games.”

The candidates also disagreed on the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, a spending limits proposal that will appear as Question 1 on the Nov. 7 ballot. The proposal would limit state and local spending increases to the rate of inflation and population and require voter approval for all tax increases.

Baldacci, Merrill and LaMarche all oppose TABOR, with Baldacci calling it the “wrong solution for a real problem.”

Woodcock and NaPier supported the plan, with NaPier saying it “takes power away from aristocrats and gives it back to the people.”

There were no social issues raised during the televised portion of the debate. But the candidates again outlined their positions on abortion rights during a student-run forum after the debate.

Woodcock, who has been targeted by Democrats for his anti-abortion stance, explained that while he opposed abortion, he would not submit legislation to further limit the practice. He did say, however, he would sign any such legislation if passed by lawmakers.

“I don’t intend to change my position,” he said.

Baldacci, LaMarche and Merrill all support abortion rights, with Baldacci saying he would veto any legislation limiting a woman’s constitutional right to have an abortion.

“I’m not going to let Maine become a state that goes backward,” he said.

Wednesday’s debate will be rebroadcast on Maine Public Television at 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 5.

While the UM debate was the final televised debate scheduled in the contest, there is one remaining public debate among the candidates.

That final debate, sponsored by the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Colby College and the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel newspapers, will begin tonight at 7 at Page Commons on the Colby College campus in Waterville.