Kudos to the Nashville Chamber for sponsoring the District 4 commissioner's candidate forum. The event was well planned and well managed. Good Job folks.

In my opinion, here's how the candidates shake out.

For the Dems, it's Bert Daniel over Jerry Harris.

Daniel expressed a much better understanding of the challenges facing Nash County than his opponent. He managed to maintain a positive and inspirational tone even when addressing decidedly negative subjects, one mark of an effective leader. He stated his firm intention is to represent the wishes of the majority of his constituents. I particularly liked and agree with his observation that Nash County has an image problem.

Harris' answers and summary were essentially a script prepared by Carolina Gateway. He completely lost me when he basically said it would not matter if the majority of his constituents opposed an action, he would still support it if in HIS opinion it was the right thing to do. Sorry Mr. Harris, I expect the commissioner from OUR district to champion what WE want and need, not to be a pawn for Rocky Mount.

For the Republicans, it's Lisa Barnes over Danny Tyson.

Barnes would bring a welcome breath of fresh air to the commissioner's table. She made good points regarding the current growth of Raleigh and how Nash should be positioning itself to take advantage. She also addressed the "G" word. Politicians don't like to use the "G" word. Yes, Nash County and specifically Rocky Mount have a serious gang problem and we're not going to fix anything till we fix that.

Tyson's version of "look at all the good things we've done" was not impressive or memorable. His vision of the future for Nash County sounded like a repeat of what we've seen for the past several years, something along the lines of rearranging the furniture in a burning house. His final cheap shot at Barnes finished him off in my opinion.

All said and done I'm leaning toward Bert Daniel, however as was said earlier this is just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.