With national attention firmly focused on the horse race for the White House, the Wake County Libertarian Party have scheduled a series of meetups that will address key local issues between now and November. The LPNC gubernatorial candidate, Lon Cecil, and the seven Libertarians running for NCGA seats in Wake County have all agreed to stress three main issues—education, the environment, and transportation—and each of those three will be the subject of one of these programs.

“The level of the national debate so far has been pretty disappointing,” stated Olen Watson, Libertarian candidate for House-38. “They seem to spend a lot of time talking about e-mails, discussing each other’s anatomy, and coming up with even nastier things to say about each other. We only get the full attention of the electorate for a few weeks or months every two or four years and here in North Carolina, we feel an obligation to use that time to debate how best to move forward into the 21st Century.”

“The national election gets most of the press, but in reality, it’s decisions made here in Raleigh or your local county or town that have the most effect on your day-to-day life,” added Brad Hessel, Libertarian candidate for Senate-15. “Those are the decisions we want to talk about.”

The meetup series kicks off on Thursday with a program on environmental policy hosted by Brian Lewis, Libertarian candidate for House-11. It will focus on the question of how free market economics and a desire for environmental preservation inte-relate. Here is the full schedule:

• Thu 4 Aug—Environmental Policy hosted by Brian Lewis
• Thu 18 Aug—Electoral Reform hosted by Brad Hessel
• Thu 8 Sep—Education hosted by Olen Watson
• Thu 29 Sep—Transportation hosted by Brian Lewis
• Thu 27 Oct—Booze & Pot hosted by Brad Hessel & Olen Watson

All the meetups are scheduled to be held starting at 7:30pm EDT at the unofficial HQ of the WakeLP, The Gourmet Factory and will be webcast live. For more details, check out the WakeLP Facebook events page or the Triangle Libertarian Meetup page.