Splendiferous!

The debate between Orrock and Kenney was last night. I took a ton of notes, and have not yet compiled them into a proper article. The Free Lance-Star did. It's a fairly good article, and fairly accurate. Two points I want to make.

The article starts off with this:

[D]uring a two-hour debate that occasionally grew emotional

No kidding.

The article reviews that idea later:

Education ended up producing the most personal question of the night, when an audience member pressed Kenney on his background, specifically where he went to school.

He explained that while he attended Catholic University, then Germanna Community College and then the University of Mary Washington—studying biology and philosophy while at times working three jobs to pay tuition—he did not finish college.

That’s because he chose to get a full-time job when in his senior year, he and his wife learned they were going to have a child.

“I made sure my wife had enough money to be able to go to college,” Kenney said. “We could have taken the easy way out and had an abortion, but we didn’t and we have a beautiful boy over there because of that experience.”

The audience member in question, wearing an Orrock sticker by the way, seemed eager to press home the point that Kenney has not yet finished college. Very eager. Why is that?

Orrock also disclosed his educational background, admitting that in his first two quarters at Virginia Tech, he was perilously close to flunking out, so came home and spent his sophomore year at Germanna, before returning to graduate from Virginia Tech.

It should be explained here that Orrock answered this question (the last question of the night) from an audience member that was clearly with (and the whole thing was planned ahead to make this point) the individual who asked the previous question. Orrock answered the question this way after this gentleman referred to Kenney as a college drop out. The audience, the moderator, and Orrock all came down on this person. And rightfully so. His comments were clearly out of line, disgraceful, and an embarrasment. Sir, whoever you are (and I have a good idea who), you should be ashamed of yourself. Having a degree in no way makes you qualified for being the Delegate of the 54th District. I have a degree in Mathematics. Does that make me at all qualified for being a delegate? Absolutely not! Shoot, I didn't know what half the crap they were talking about even was. I never learned about Dillon Rules in my institute of higher learning. You sir, are an idiot.

He didn't even stay to apologize.

Kudos to Bobby Orrock for supporting Shaun Kenney when he was viciously attacked.

Then there is this quote about a question asked just before that disgraceful business above.

[Orrock] said the solution is bringing higher-paying jobs to the area, although he acknowledged—when a member of the audience pointed it out—that it’s hard to do that when some businesses decide not to locate in Spotsylvania specifically because of its traffic problems.

I am that audience member! Woo. It wasn't so much me pointing out that it's difficult to do that. Orrock himself had already pointed it out. I just pointed out that his solution for solving the traffic problem is to bring more jobs, but than an hour later he says the jobs won't come until we fix traffic. Interesting circular reasoning. He thinks the way to fix it is through more exits on 95, something I'm not all that sure is going to work.

This gentleman suggests bringing Metro all the way down to Fredericksburg, something neither candidate mentioned.

A full breakdown of the debate will be forthcoming.