We commend Mike Hankins and the Lunenburg Republican Party for bringing two of the three Republican gubernatorial candidates to our community recently, allowing the voters and those interested in the race the opportunity to learn more about the candidates and their stances on issues that are important to them.

The debate-style forum offered a question-and-answer session using questions submitted by the community and the opportunity for citizens to meet one-on-one with the candidates.

We commend the organization for being so inclusive of the community in taking questions from those who were both able and unable to attend by accepting the questions well in advance of the event.

“I think it was a very effective event,” Karen Hawthorne said following the forum. “I think the information we received was powerful and it gave us some good information so that we can go home and try to discern what to do from here. There were really good questions asked to help us answer the questions that we needed to get answered.”

As we and many others before us have said, Democracy is not a spectator sport, and this event allowed the community to interact with the men who could potentially govern the commonwealth of Virginia in a very unique way, and we thank the event organizers for making this happen.

Commenting after the event, Hankins said he thought the event went well and was glad the community was able to come and hear the two candidates speak.

“I think the candidates gave good, detailed responses, there was no beating around the bush,” Hankins said. “I was really impressed with both of them. Anybody that came and listened to these two guys would have a tough decision on who to vote for. It was a good informational experience.”