I aim to please, Bryanna.

I fully understand that these things (fora) don’t “just happen,” and as I said earlier, the efforts of the “Committee of 100″ are to be commended; my intent was merely to offer an opinion as constructive suggestion — not to be offensive.

The Day-Lingamfelter debate was a bit more interesting. Both candidates started out well but Day was clearly out-classed as the night wore on. Day seemed to have read his material in a prepared fashion and had no answer on how he would pay for anything and basically gave long winded remarks on his political philosophy with no number to back anything up. Lingamfelter really hit Day on the hybrid and pre-k stuff and Day had absolutely no answer on how he could pay for anything but the best part of this debate was when Lingamfelter pulled out one of Day’s mailers on his plan for Virginia and plainly illustrated that it showed nothing about illegal immigration right after Day said this was one of the most important issues in the district. Lingamfelter seemed to be familiar with specifics on what he had done and Day seemed to wax eloquently on philosphy with nothing to back it up numbers wise. I think he got flustered after a few questions in which he started off decently and never really recovered.

Federal Government needs to give more authority and money back to the states, the states need to give money and authority to the locality and together we will enforce the law. Local goverments must be given the tools they need to get things done. Whether it’s enforcement of Immigration law, or counterterrorism efforts.

Federal government is the source of the problem. They take the bulk of our money, then don’t get the job done, and the state and local government is expected to clean things up.

Dem’s say people have to pay for what they ask for, I am paying, we’re all paying, and when they ask us to pay again we better have people in state government that have a back bone like Del. Jeff Frederick and Sen. Jay O’Brien. No FLIP FLOPPERS ALLOWED in the Commonwealth.

Then we need to get control of the out-of- control spending of our Congress and use that money for BORDERS!

While I agree that illegal immigration is an important issue, I don’t subscribe to the theory that all of our woes would disappear if only those darn aliens were deported. I don’t believe for an instant that my traffic woes would improve that dramatically if there were no illegal immigrants around (I don’t recall seeing too many ‘89 Sentras on my way into the office this morning–it was mostly high-dollar SUVs and minivans). And, all I said in my post is that the “hot topic” of conversation when I’ve been at dinner parties, church gatherings, etc., has not been what to do about the immigration issue but rather about abusive driver fees, construction woes on 66, and the number of trailers (or lack thereof) at the local elementary school. While there are indeed a myriad of effects the illegal immigration has on our community, I don’t believe that one single issue is so dominant as to be the crux of any election cycle.

Questions may be submitted on line at http://www.pwc100.org/ and will be provided to the Questions Committee at the forum IF additional questions are needed. Priority is given to those who make a paid reservation and arrive in time for dinner.

As a member of the Program Committee, we know the quality of the questions are a critical success factor in the debate. We encourage you to arrive at 6:30 p.m. to allow more time to meet and speak directly to the candidates.

As Greg mentioned the next debate is Thursday, September 20th, followed by September 26th (Thursday) and will feature the House 51st race with Faisal Gill and Paul Nichols following a limited forum in the county wide race for Sheriff.

Reservations can be made at the link above. Thanks to all of you who attended and for supporting the Prince William Committee of 100 efforts in hosting these important public debates.

Also, I’d like to thank James for the word-of-the-day. While “Forums” is an accepted plural of “Forum” according to dictionary.com, “Fora” just sounds cooler.

As for the questions, I hope that people will find those next week more satisfactory. I’ll certainly do my best to make sure that they are. The problem may well be the questions submitted. The “questions committee” can only work with what they’re given.

While the efforts of the “Committee of 100″ are to be commended, cramming two “debates” into one evening didn’t give any of the candidates an opportunity to express themselves on any issue. The moderator posed a question to a candidate who was allowed a two minute response. Then, the opposing candidate was allowed a one minute rebuttal. Then, on to the next question. Hardly sufficient time for a candidate to explain their position.

Further, the questions asked (which were apparently developed by the “questions committee”) were very general. As a result, the responses were equally general. If the audience didn’t already know the candidates’ positions on weighty issues, the debate did little to help them see the differences.