The candidates running to be the next attorney general of Virginia clashed in Manassas on Oct. 7, launching verbal attacks against each other with some heckles and applause from the crowd thrown in for good measure.

Debating at the Verizon Auditorium at the Prince William campus of George Mason University, state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R-37th) and Del. Steve Shannon (D-35th) offered differing views on how to handle corruption and what type of background an attorney general should have before entering office.

Disagreements included how each candidate handled the pay-to-play scandal of Hampton Roads Del. Phil Hamilton (R-93rd), who was more qualified to be the AG, what should have been done in Virginia to address the the Melendez-Diaz drunk driving Supreme Court case, banning illegal immigrants from attending Virginia colleges and universities, and who could better help create jobs.

Shannon repeatedly highlighted his background as a prosecutor and called himself as a "pro-business, law and order centrist" compared to the "xenophobic" "ideologue" Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli declared his 0 percent rating from the AFL-CIO labor union proves he is the more pro-business than Shannon, who had an AFL-CIO score of 100 percent, and that he consistently opposed higher taxes in the legislature.

Both candidates claim different Chamber of Commerce endorsements.

Regarding Hamilton, who asked for a part-time position at Old Dominion University while securing money for a new facility at the campus, Shannon called for his resignation while Cuccinelli did not. Shannon called it a matter of public corruption, Cuccinelli said it was an issue that could come in front of the attorney general.

Given the setting of a university campus in Prince William County, the topic of illegal immigration was prominent in the debate.

Shannon called out Cuccinelli for authoring a 2008 bill that defined "misconduct" in the workplace to also include "an employee's inability or refusal to speak English at the workplace, in violation of a known policy of the employer that requires employees to speak only English at the workplace."

The Washington Post editorial board accused Cuccinelli of "xenophobia," "blame shifting" and "immigrant bashing" for the bill. Cuccinelli ultimately struck the word "only" from the bill. It died in committee 15-0 on the same day the Post printed the editorial.

Shannon charged the bill "has nothing to do with people who are here illegally. It just has to do with people who were born in another country."

Cuccinelli claimed in turn that "when you pay unemployment as an employer, your taxes go up." He also mentioned, "under Steve's scheme, the law is what it is now so what happens is the person will never be hired because the business won't take the risk of absorbing the unemployment hit."

The senator from western Fairfax in turn called out the Vienna delegate for voting against bills in 2004, 2005 and 2008 that would have barred public college and universities from enrolling "illegal aliens". Shannon did vote against the three bills Cuccinelli cited, all of which passed the House of Delegates with 67 to 73 members supporting them.

However, the bills all died in a Senate committee. Shannon did not justify his votes at the debate but did mention opposing efforts "to allow people who are not here legally to get in-state tuition."

The two traded jabs at each other during the first nine questions asked by moderator Scott Thuman of WJLA TV before Cuccinelli seemed to stump Shannon during a segment when candidates could ask each other one question each without a rebuttal.

Cuccinelli asked Shannon "how many divisions are there in the attorney general's office and please name each one and explain briefly what each one does." Shannon demurred, saying, "I'll talk about that in a second. Let me go into the 2004 budget real quick," as he continued to make a point about a prior topic of debate.

"If we were in court, I would object to a witness not answering a question," said Cuccinelli to laughs and applause.

Shannon said this is the point of the election cycle where the candidates play the "game of gotcha" and cited an instance where Cuccinelli told a reporter hitting a police officer was a misdemeanor instead of a felony.

The delegate then went back into his stump speech about how often a violent crime is committed in Virginia and the number of pedophiles using computers to look up and trade child pornography in Virginia.

"But what does Ken want to talk about? He wants to talk about arcane questions. He wants to talk about details of the bureaucracy," said Shannon to heckles from Cuccinelli supporters. "The reality's that kids in Virginia are being abused right now."

When Shannon asked how Cuccinelli could reconcile his position of not supporting interest rate caps for pay-day lenders while being an advocate for the consumer, the state senator replied, "So I guess I'll talk about the weather."

Though Cuccinelli lectured Shannon about not being prepared to know what the office does, Cuccinelli did not list or describe the divisions of the attorney general's office. During a phone interview Thursday, the AG director of communications David Clementson recited seven divisions from an organizational flow chart made available to employees of the office on a local Intranet server. They are as follows:

-Administrative division;

-Civil litigation division;

-Financial law and government support division;

-Health, education and social services division;

-Public safety and enforcement division;

-S.T.A.G. (sexually violent predators, tobacco, agriculture) and debt collections division;

-Technology, real estate, environment and transportation division

Cuccinelli replied to the pay-day lending question three minutes into his answer, saying "I have not supported completely shutting down the consumer lending, call it, industry, that's relatively new in Virginia because I support free markets. I do think there should be limits and we do put limits on them but I don't think we should just willy-nilly shut down industries we don't like."

The General Assembly capped interest rates for payday advance loans at 36 percent last year, down previously from 400 percent. Cuccinelli supported the original bill before it went to the House but missed voting on the final version when 38 of 40 senators voted for it and one abstained. Shannon voted for it each time.