By the end of Wednesday’s Republican Senate debate, not a single candidate remained unscathed, in part because The Gazette and KKTV opened the debate to allow candidates to pepper each other.

The final minutes of the hour-long conversation between five men seeking the Republican nomination for Senate proved heated and contentious.

On a small stage in Berger Hall at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, the candidates attacked each other’s records.

“Darryl, I tossed you a softball last time, let me toss you a contrast question,” said Ryan Frazier, standing up to talk to candidate Darryl Glenn one seat away. “You’ve gone on record saying you would not vote for a tax increase, yet over your 14 years in office you’ve voted to increase taxes. How do you reconcile that?”

“When I look out in Colorado Springs right now, when I think about the projects we are all benefiting from,” Glenn responded, “if you would not support that, then what you’re telling your constituents or potential ones is that you’re not going to govern in their best interests. … I am the only one up here that has signed a pledge with CUT that I will not raise taxes. Did anybody else sign that pledge?”

“I have not signed it,” Frazier said, referring to the Colorado Union of Taxpayers pledge to uphold the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, something that isn’t a federal issue. “But you did increase taxes.”

“Thank you for admitting you won’t sign the CUT pledge,” Glenn quipped, before standing up to go after Jon Keyser.

“I didn’t say I won’t, Darryl. Don’t take my words out of context,” Frazier said.

The next 30 seconds entailed Frazier trying to clarify his statement to Glenn’s turned back.

It got ugly.

The candidates kicked off the debate by answering a question about whether they had upheld a pledge that some candidates took not to attack each other personally in the primary.

The fear in a race that started with more than a dozen candidates is that the survivor of the primary will be too broken and beaten in November to legitimately challenge incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet.

Early in the debate, all five candidates drew a distinction between asking relevant background questions to draw distinctions of record and attacks. About 30 minutes later, the discourse was much less jovial.

“Did you receive your Bronze Star for the work you’ve done on a software program? Or did you receive the Bronze Star for as you have represented to the community that you have personally kicked in doors and have gone to combat?” Glenn asked Keyser, a fellow Air Force Academy graduate who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Keyser failed to answer the question Wednesday night, but clarified to The Gazette Thursday that he received the medal for work on the ground in Baghdad with a unit that captured and killed high value targets. Keyser also provided The Gazette with copies of his military records.

Glenn interrupted Keyser several times trying to get him to say specifically whether he was with the unit doing capture and kill missions or simply providing support. Keyser fired back, calling Glenn’s military career one of being “in the rear with the gear.”

But it didn’t end there.

Robert Blaha, a Colorado Springs businessman, asked Jack Graham about being fired from Colorado State University. This is the second time Blaha has asked Graham about a negative performance review the university released after Graham was fired.

“Last night you again stated that the performance review was fabricated and released illegally,” Blaha said. “Jack, those are not true statements. Those are lies.”

Graham said the heavily redacted performance review is public and has been for years.

“I lived in a fish bowl for three years,” he said referencing his time as the athletic director at CSU. “Anything anybody wants to know about me they can just go online and Google my name. It’s all there.”

“Were you fired?” Blaha interjected.

“Hold your water, Robert,” Graham says. “Yeah, I was fired. It’s kind of a badge of honor.”

Needless to say, the gloves have come off in a race that has had conflict simmering for some time.

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Contact Megan Schrader: 286-0644

Twitter @CapitolSchrader

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymous Bosch.