Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell is only days away from finding out whether his dream for governing comes true as control of the state Senate could flip with just two Republican gains on November 8.

The GOP governor stopped by Northern Virginia last week to campaign for state Senate candidate and former Del. Dick Black (R) in Gainesville.

He then headed over to Fairfax for a Republican rally with Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling (R) and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.

After the morning house party in Heritage Hunt, McDonnell fielded questions during a one-on-one interview in which he discussed his administration's tentative priorities if his fellow Republicans won back control of the entire legislature.

Republicans already control the House of Delegates by a wide margin that is only likely to increase after election day. The state Senate is the last threshold of power Democrats control in state government as Republicans also hold all three statewide elected offices related to Richmond.

McDonnell focused on what he called a "government reform" agenda. He started by mentioning an on-going panel is meeting to determine what would be the best way to reduce the number of boards, commissions and agencies within state government so officials can then work on "cutting spending in areas that are lower priority and then (reinvest) in things that are higher priority."

Those higher priorities items, according to the governor, include higher education and transportation.

He targeted entitlement spending as one area that could include cuts. That is also an area of impasse in the state Senate as Democrats are philosophically opposed to large cuts in mandatory spending.

"I need to fix the retirement system. We're $18 billion under-funded," said McDonnell. "We have several things that were proposed in the House last year that were killed in the Senate."

During his speech to GOP activists in local resident Emily Bright's basement, McDonnell said that if Republicans won back the state Senate, "we're going to be able to fix problems like the Virginia Retirement System and create more school choice and be able to drive down the cost of college tuition and have a comprehensive energy policy that will make Virginia the energy capital of the east coast."

Regarding the Virginia Retirement System, one item of contention with Democrats that McDonnell highlighted during his interview was an "optional defined contribution plan."

The crux of that proposal is to have state employees put 5 percent of their salary aside to cover their pensions. In return, they would receive a 3 percent raise in salary.

Democrats counter that such a move could short-change state employees at a time when many have gone years without receiving a raise due to budget cuts.

"We've got to start looking at some of these more creative left turns that other states have had if we're going to balance our VRS plan," said McDonnell.

The governor also talked about issues of local control, such as the 287 (g) program which allows local law enforcement officials to begin the deportation process for illegal immigrants after an arrest.

Prince William County has an active 287 (g) program. McDonnell lamented the lack of a statewide approval for Virginia from the federal government as the commonwealth's application has been "sitting on somebody's desk for 14 months now.

"I've spoken to (Homeland Security) Secretary (Janet) Napolitano about it. I cannot get an answer," he said.

Because Virginia is a Dillon Rule state, localities must receive permission from the state government in order to enact various laws. The Dillon Rule was born from a judge's distrust of local officials having too much power.

So when asked about what his administration is doing to grant more power to localities, McDonnell replied, "First and foremost, I've got an unfunded mandates commission that has been formed at the request of the legislature and it is looking at everything that we require the local governments to do that maybe we should revisit and repeal these mandates on local government."

He later added, "And so I'm asking them, 'You tell us. What are the things we're making you do from Richmond that you don't think you need to do anymore or we're making you do and not providing you the money.' We want to get rid of those requirements and I think that's a great start."

Though he didn't specify which types of powers he would like granted toward localities, McDonnell did mention that, even as a supporter of the Dillon Rule, "we have even more authority that we could potentially give to local governments that already (exist) in a lot of (their) charters but we could put it into general law."

McDonnell then laid out the case for why the Dillon Rule is important to Virginia receiving high marks nationally for being a business-friendly state.

"It creates a uniformity of law on important issues throughout the commonwealth instead of a business having to worry about 135 different codes and a real patchwork when it comes to business," he said. "(That) makes it a lot harder to do business."