’Georgia is a battleground.’ Trump supporters rally in west Georgia as Biden visits nearby
Gayle Revels was among the first to arrive at Manchester Mill on a misty Tuesday morning when the Republicans coming to rally at the now-defunct factory had yet to erect all their Trump-Pence signs and flags.
Revels, 71, who wore a Trump 2020 mask with the president’s picture and an American flag on it, said she’s a Gold Star mom, her son Christopher Dickerson having been killed in Iraq in 2004. He had served one stint in the Navy before re-enlisting after 9/11.
Revels said she came out to show she supports the president.
“I’m supporting him because he’s ending the wars. He has made our economy boom, until this horrible epidemic,” she said. “You know, he’s done everything right. He’s not a politician. He’s a businessman, and he’s running this country like a businessman.”
Despite news that Georgia’s now in play, prompting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s visit Tuesday to Warm Springs just four miles up the road from Manchester, Revels wasn’t buying it.
If you don’t believe Georgia’s still a Republican state, go see what happens in Warm Springs, she said: “You need to drive toward Warm Springs when this is over. It’s going to be shocking. There are going to be ‘Bikers for Trump’ lining the whole White House parkway, going to where Biden is supposed to be.”
In a 20 minute speech at Mountain Top Inn and Resort with limited media and supporters in attendance, Biden spoke on the COVID-19 crisis, the need for racial justice in the United States, and the healing powers of Warm Springs in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s battle with polio.
“This place, Warm Springs, is a reminder that though broken, each of us can be healed and that as a people and a country, that we can overcome this devastating virus,” he said. “...I believe in American hope. Not fear, but unity. America is a story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”
Outside the resort, Biden and Trump supporters lined the road on each side. A Biden pool reporter said Trump supporters appeared to outnumber Biden’s two-to-one.
‘Don’t believe the polls’
As Revels spoke to a reporter in Manchester, Alton Russell and Joseph Brannan set up tables and microphones for the Republican speakers, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, state party chairman David Shafer and Congressman Drew Ferguson.
Russell chairs the Muscogee County Republican Party. Brannan is its first vice-chair.
Russell said they came to get the party’s message out: “Our message is low taxes, close the borders, support the military, make sure that we go by the rule of law, with no excuses,” he said.
Does he believe Georgia’s in play, this election year?
“You know, Georgia’s always in play, but as far as the polls, the polls also had Hillary Clinton winning by double digits, which didn’t happen,” he said, referring to Trump’s victory in 2016. “So as far as being in play, I think we are, but all we need to do is be sure we turn out. If Republicans turn out and vote for our president, we’ll be in good shape.”
Did Biden’s visit spark the Manchester rally?
“I don’t think we are reacting to Biden being here, but I think we are always in a positive way being sure we support the Republican candidates from the top to the bottom,” Russell said. “We’re trying to show that you can’t take Georgia for granted.”
Gov. Kemp took to the microphone around 11:30 a.m., following a rousing speech from Ferguson.
Kemp referred to the heated fight over whether Georgia might vote for a Democrat for the first time since Bill Clinton was president in the 1990s.
“Georgia is a battleground state, but we’re going to do whatever it takes to win this war,” Kemp said as the crowd cheered, at one point shouting in unison “Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!”
Like Russell, the governor didn’t give recent polls much credit.
“Don’t believe the polls,” he said. “You are the polls.... When you go vote, you are the poll.”
Conservative values
When the speeches ended and the crowd dispersed, Bill and Becky Strandberg gathered their lawn chairs and started back to their car.
Strandberg, a minister, said they moved to the Manchester area in 2000, and they loved it, having fled the hectic pace of Tampa, Florida.
Bill said he first came to Georgia for the hunting.
“Have you seen the deer in Florida?” his wife asked.
“They’re really small,” her husband noted.
But once they got to know the place, the people took precedent over the game.
“We like the people. We like the pace of life,” Bill said. “When somebody says they’re going to do it up here, they do it. That’s what I like about this place.”
They were firmly in Trump’s corner, though they once were Democrats, they said.
“We used to be Democratic, many years ago,” Bill said. “I began to see the party slip away, and I like conservatism, and I believe in conservatism, and so, you have to look at the candidates and see what they believe, what the party stands behind.”
Said Becky: “We do not believe in abortion.”
Added Bill: “I believe in the sanctity of life. That’s a must. I believe in the Constitution, and how it’s written, and not some individual’s interpretation of it. I believe that we have the right to bear arms, the right to worship in the place of our choosing. So I have a president now that stands for that. He may not be a saint, but he’s not a political puppet either, of a party. So I want to show my support for him today. That’s why we came out.”
News reports on issues involving Trump’s personal life, over the years, don’t trouble him, the minister said.
“None of us are perfect, OK?” he said. “But you have to see what they stand for, in relation to what you believe, before you cast a vote. I don’t tell the folks that are my parishioners how to vote, but I tell them to look at what the candidates stand for in regard to biblical principles.”
That bedrock view of conservative values is what makes them feel at home in rural Georgia, he said.
“For us, coming back from the busyness of Florida, west-central Florida, the Tampa Bay area, up to here, it was like stepping back in Norman Rockwell days,” he said, referring to the American artist’s nostalgic images. “And I got to tell you, that’s where I want to be. That’s where I want my family to be.”
This story was originally published October 27, 2020 at 3:17 PM.