ST. MARYS — Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson isn’t the most stirring speaker ever to grace a podium. During his campaign for the GOP nomination earlier this year, he often appeared stiff and overly reliant on index cards to carry him through a speech.
But this week in St. Marys, the billionaire healthcare executive who has never run for political office showed why he defeated Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the favorite for the nomination and the candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump: He knows how to connect with Georgia Republicans.
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Jackson’s stop in St. Marys on Tuesday came on the second of a two-day bus tour of south Georgia. And for 90 minutes, the 72-year-old Jackson worked his way through the crowd gathered at Seagle’s Restaurant, shaking hands and fielding questions from voters and posing for photos. He never delivered a speech — not even “remarks.”
Some of the attendees told him how much his upbringing in foster care had touched them. Others asked him about literacy and his business record. Still others, like Roy Versele of St. Marys, wanted to know his position on data centers.
“China is right on our heels and we have got to stay above that,” Versele later said, recounting Jackson’s reply, adding: “I believe he’s on the case about what’s pertinent to us.”
His answer has evolved since June when Jackson said that “every community needs to have control” over whether to host a data center.
Other attendees had no questions for Jackson, at all. They simply wanted to express to him their support for Christian values and his brand of politics.
Stephanie Deaton, who is in her 30s and from Camden County, said she favored Jackson over Jones in the GOP primary and runoff because he was a more “traditional” conservative Republican — not, she said, the “radical, attacking kind” on Fox News. “My generation is over that.”
Jones came in first in the May primary election, but Jackson defeated him by more than 37,500 votes in the runoff four weeks later.
A legion of local Republican lawmakers packed the room, including Coastal Georgia Congressman Earl “Buddy” Carter, state Reps. Steven Sainz and Mike Townsend, state Sen. Mike Hodges, and Steve Mendez, secretary of the board of the Georgia Department of Veterans Service.
Also present were St Marys Councilman Artie Jones, Kingsland County Commissioner Martin Turner, Georgia GOP Chairwoman June Maxwell, and Tracolya Green, Camden County School superintendent and members from Camden County Republican Women.
Sainz, who closely attended to the candidate throughout the night, praised the candidate’s campaign style.
Jackson “doesn’t want to speak at you — he wants to speak with you,” Sainz said. “I think the amazing, unreplicable thing about Rick Jackson is that he can truly connect to people, unlike anyone else.”
The few people Jackson did not speak with during the event: reporters. When a journalist asked the candidate what he believes are the top issues for Coastal Georgia, a staff member hustled him to a waiting car, saying “that wasn’t the agreed on question.”
Jackson’s campaign announced Monday that he will spend $87 million on an initial ad buy to promote his candidacy against the Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor. The ads are scheduled to start airing Saturday, the same day Bottoms and other Georgia Democrats assemble in Savannah for their state convention.
Jackson’s spent at least $107 million on his primary, most of it from his own pocket.
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