Hundreds of people gathered at the Hotel Captain Cook ballroom on Monday to listen to the three major Republican gubernatorial candidates make one last pitch for a vote in Tuesday's primary.

The trio -- Ralph Samuels, Bill Walker and Gov. Sean Parnell -- took advantage of the opportunity to counter some of the rhetoric of the political season while reiterating the key talking points of the campaign trail.

The debate had originally been set for Aug. 12 but was rescheduled for Monday after Ted Stevens and four others were killed in a plane crash earlier that week. And in some regards the debate had a bit of a subdued feel compared to similar events in recent days and weeks.

Walker, who has framed his campaign around a push to build an "all-Alaska gas line" from the North Slope to Valdez, mildly took issue with Parnell suggesting that he was "spreading doom and gloom" for talking about the decline of oil. But the drop-off in the volume of oil running through the trans-Alaska pipeline is getting seriously low, he said, and he continued to assert that the way to get more oil in the pipeline is to build a gas line because oil and gas are produced together.

For his part, Parnell shook his head over Walker's repeated jab that the governor has been ducking campaign forums and making only a few select appearances. Parnell said he's been at 12 forums -- not just the half a dozen Walker counts -- and that what matters is whether people have had an adequate opportunity to hear him and judge him. Parnell also suggested that Walker is wrong when he says the state has been doing little but studying the proposed gas line, rather than taking steps to move it forward.

"To say we're studying and not building is simply false," Parnell said, noting that the companies interested in building the line have put millions of dollars of work into the potential projects.

Samuels repeated his insistence that it's time for the state to start having difficult conversations about how it will sustain education, particularly in rural areas, and Medicaid spending when oil revenues are projected to decline significantly. He remains critical of Parnell and the Legislature for approving annual budgets that continue to grow.

"I may not have all the answers but I am not scared to talk about some of the realities of Alaska's fiscal state," he said.

For the most part, the candidates stayed on the political tracks they've been on. Parnell thinks he's done a good job in the past year watching out for Alaska's interests. He used a question on health care to tout his domestic violence and sexual assault initiatives. He said he is the only candidate who has proposed tax credits for oil companies to encourage more exploration and development.

Samuels continued to support an in-state "bullet line" to bring gas off the North Slope and into the Southcentral region and the Railbelt. Despite the high cost of a small line, Samuels said, it's doable and the cost to subsidize it is a legitimate function of government.

In an answer to a question on the state's oil tax system, called ACES, Samuels noted he voted against it and said he would have vetoed it as governor. The tax law took away the oil producers' ability to "hit a home run in Alaska," he said.

"We made political decisions and (the oil producers) continue to make economic decisions," he said. "We need to start making economic decisions."

On a question about the proposed Pebble mine in Bristol Bay, Walker reiterated his belief that the process of vetting the mine project needs to be followed. "But I will not sacrifice fish for non-renewable resource," he said. "I'll protect fish every day."

Contact Patti Epler at patti(at)alaskadispatch.com.