Friday, June 29, 2007

The REAL Page County

I just went to the nicest, homiest, warmest event. It was the Election Debate hosted by Mary Whitehead at the VFW. Mary was a fantastic Mistress of Ceremonies. She really knew what the deal was in Page County, and seemed to have everybody’s “number.” Mary invited all the candidates running for office, and the VFW hall was filled to overflowing with citizens. Every candidate got to say their piece and give their platform. Mary was very strict about not having any negative campaigning or crucifying anybody, either on the stage or from audience questions.

You know what? It was really nice. It was heartwarming to hear each person talk about why they wanted to run for office and what they wanted to do. It was amazing to me how many people came, since I knew it wasn’t publicized much. In addition to the candidates, Mary also had Todd Gilbert there, and a representative of Mark Obershain.

All the candidates were there except District 2 Supervisor John Rust, and District 4 Supervisor Gerald Cubbage and his Democratic challenger Raymond Kite. Other than that, everybody else running was there. They gave such GREAT speeches. I’m not kidding, they were really, really good speeches, from everybody.

What was so good about them was that these were real people, with real heartfelt desires to serve the people. It didn’t matter whether they were polished public speakers or just speaking from the heart. You could tell they were people who cared. All of them.

In fact, when you listened to them, you started to think, Gee. It wouldn’t really matter which of these candidates got the most votes.

They were all winners.

I hope everybody in Page County gets to meet the people who have put themselves on the line to run for office. Mary will be running another one of these debates in the Fall. In August, Page County Watch will be setting up a special Elections Section of the website, where every candidate will have their own pages, and citizens can submit Questions for the Candidates.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

PCW has captured the positive nature of last night’s “Meet the Candidate” forum perfectly. Thank you, Ms. Whitehead for all of your hard work to arrange it. I might add that Ms.Whitehead did a terrific job managing the session as well.