Tonight's Prince William Committee of 100 debate featured the candidates for two County-wide offices. Actually, for Clerk of the Circuit Court, the office covers the County, and cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.
The first debate was for Clerk of the Circuit Court, with three candidates: Republican Michele McQuigg; Democrat Bill Ryland; and Traitor Lucy Beauchamp.
I missed most of it, being on the "questions committee" (along with Republican Trent Barton, and Democrats Bill Westhoff and Keith Scarborough) for the BOCS Chairman debate scheduled later. However, that portion of it that I saw demonstrated beyond question that County and Cities voters have a choice between two well-qualified candidates.
From what I saw, both McQuigg (a long-time friend and political ally) and Ryland (a social acquaintance) acquitted themselves well. Oddly, though, Ryland focused upon his credentials as an attorney, hardly a qualification for the job. Indeed, one has to wonder why a successful attorney would seek the job.
Perhaps the most enlightening part of the debate was seeing School Board Chairman Beauchamp in action. The portion that I saw had her making elaborate claims of accomplishment as a member of an eight-member School Board. Of course, to hear her tell, she was actively managing the schools. Ryland was devastating in wondering why, then, we were paying dozens of administrators millions in salary to do the same job.
It was a reminder that Beauchamp long ago reached her level of incompetence, and certainly doesn't deserve election to a $100,000+/year job. Her continued presence in the race is nothing more than the childish effort to petulantly harm the prospects for Michele McQuigg to hold the seat for the GOP.
Given that she has always been identified as a member of the not-much-of-a wing of the GOP, it remains to be seen whether she takes more votes from Ryland than she does from McQuigg.
UPDATE: Bryan J. Scrafford thinks that Bill Ryland won the debate. Wow. A Democrat partisan thinks a Democrat won the debate.
Now, Bill Ryland is a social friend of mine. I spent a considerable amount of time after the debate talking to his wife, Sally, about their son's college choice and impending visit to my alma mater. And he did have the single best line of the debate when he quoted back to Beauchamp her idiotic statement to the WaPo --- quoted on her own website! --- that she was qualified to be Clerk of the Circuit Court because she watched a lot of Perry Mason in her day (though, as I recall, neither Perry nor any of his people spent a lot of air-time in the Clerk's office). But I didn't see much of it, and the part that I saw was not dominated by either Ryland or McQuigg.
Does Scrafford really labor under the belief that he has any credibility here?
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