It’s about character, Rick Jackson says

In times past, an early Saturday afternoon in late August in Coastal Georgia wouldn’t be an occasion for a political rally. That would wait until after Labor Day.

But early in-person voting has scrambled the political calendar, and with voters able to start casting ballots in this year’s elections in just 45 days, there’s no August lull for candidates.

Which is why Rick Jackson, the Republican Party’s candidate for governor, was in Savannah this weekend, drumming up support for his race against former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, in a county where no GOP candidate for the office has won in two decades.

Mounting the stage to the opening chords of The Rolling Stones “Start Me Up,” the 72-year-old billionaire healthcare executive delivered a well-crafted speech to at least 250 people, mostly north of age 50, packed into a ballroom at the DeSoto Hotel in downtown Savannah. He framed the choice for voters as one of character — his versus his opponent’s.

As Atlanta’s mayor, Jackson said, Bottoms failed the character test, choosing in 2021 not to run for reelection amidst pandemic-related turmoil in the capitol.

“When Atlanta faced some of its hardest moments, she chose not to run again. She walked away from the fight. I never will,” said Jackson, with a strategically placed campaign sign behind him that read, “Character matters.”

In announcing her decision in 2021 not to seek reelection, Bottoms said it was time for her to “pass the baton on,” citing the cumulative toll of the pandemic, a cyberattack, and street protests and violence following George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis.

Jackson also accused Bottoms of billing the city for her husband’s “luxury travel” to the Super Bowl in 2018, and circumventing city hiring practices, allegations she and her campaign deny.

‘Nothing matters more than affordability’

In his 24-minute speech, Jackson also sought to make two prominent Democratic themes in this election cycle — affordability and access to health care — his own.

“Nothing matters more than affordability,” he said, promising that if elected governor, he would treat the issue as a crisis and address it by eliminating wasteful spending, maintaining a balanced budget and bringing transparency to “every level of government.” He said he would also push for immediate property tax relief and cut the state’s income tax in half.

As for improving access to health care for Georgians, Jackson cited his firsthand experience, part of his journey from childhood of deprivation and dislocation to the owner of a multibillion-dollar Alpharetta-based healthcare company that bears his name.

“I’ve spent my whole life in it. I know where the costs are. I know where the waste is. I know how the system helps families, and I know how it fails them,” he said.

One local Democratic lawmaker accused Jackson on Saturday of being less than transparent himself — specifically, about the terms of the healthcare contracts his company has with the state. “Jackson’s keeping us all in the dark,” state Rep. Anne Allen Westbrook (Dist. 163) said in a statement.

‘Breaking the political class’

Since his surprise announcement in February to enter the governor’s race, Jackson has capitalized on his status as political outsider — and at least $117 million of his own money — to vault him to where he sits now: the doorstep of the governor’s mansion. His position as a business executive has enabled him to sidestep the messy trade-offs that elected officials, by necessity, must choose.

On Saturday, he underscored that portrait. He vowed to break the grip of the “political class” on the state, saying that as governor, he wouldn’t be beholden to it because he hasn’t been part of it.

How that vow, as well as Jackson’s promises to root out corruption and waste in state government and improve literacy, squares with the fact that Republicans have controlled the governor’s office and both chambers of the state legislature since 2005, wasn’t clear.

Nor was it clear how his portrayal of state government carelessly spending money squares with the record of the man and fellow Republican he seeks to succeed, Brian Kemp, who is widely hailed as one of the best governors in the state’s history.

Attending Saturday’s rally were Republicans hoping Jackson’s coattails would extend to them when the votes are tallied in November. They included 1st District Congressional candidate Jim Kingston, lieutenant governor candidate Greg Dolezal, and Labor Commissioner candidate Bárbara Rivera Holmes.

Among those also in attendance were Coastal Georgia Congressman Buddy Carter, state Rep. Bill Hitchens (District 161) and former state Sen. Eric Johnson.