Although three candidates on the November ballot were invited to the September meeting of the Oconee County Republican Party to speak, the meeting quickly turned into a pep rally, strategy session, and warning about the consequences of Republican candidates not winning in November.
Oconee County Republican Party Chair Kathy Hurley began the meeting by linking the Democratic candidates seeking to represent Oconee County in the General Assembly and on the state ballot with the Democratic Socialists of America.
She was followed to the podium by Marc McMain, party nominee for state Senate District 46, who went through a list of tactics that he said Republicans should use to win in November, emphasizing the importance of personal contacts.
Ward Black, party nominee for House District 120, said he was happy to “share Oconee County with Marc, and we’re going to get” House District 121 party nominee Mack “Dutch” Guest IV “over the hump this time. We’ve got to.”
Hurley then called on Victoria Cruz, who is a regular at Republican Party meetings.
Cruz said candidates should not be “shrinking back from mentioning” President Donald Trump in their campaigning but instead should be “pointing out the good things that are happening” in the country because of Trump.
Only 20 people attended the meeting, including the candidates, but the evening ended with many taking postcards to mail and seeming to embrace at least a part of the message that Hurley, McMain, Black, and Cruz had delivered.
State School Superintendent Richard Woods, who is seeking re-election and was scheduled to speak, did not appear.
Hurley Introduction
“I have been hearing from a lot of my colleagues all over the state,” Hurley said at the beginning of the meeting on Sept. 28, “and we are just very--I won't say concerned--but we are absolutely needing people to come out and vote.”
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| Hurley 9/28/2026 |
Hurley said it is time to put aside differences that resulted from the primaries.
“I'm going to tell you, there's some on this slate of people, that are not here tonight, that I just as soon not have been the nominee,” she said.
“But I look at the Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, every local office, every state representative, state senate, and it would be disastrous” if they win, she said.
“If by chance--some chance--the governor's race or lieutenant governor go Democrat, we could very well have severe problems,” she said.
“You may not like exactly what's going on and what we're accustomed to,” she continued, “but you're a whole lot more likely to get it changed with Republicans in office than you ever will with Democrats.”
“I have done some fairly significant looking at a lot of the opponents in these races,” Hurley said, “And the thing that stands out to me is I'm hearing the same thing coming out of their mouth or on their websites that I'm hearing nationally from some of the more Democratic Socialist group folks.”
“And I am not delusional enough to think that they will take over this round,” she said, “but they will eventually. If, if by chance, '28 turns into a Democrat president, we will see the Democrat Socialists take over the Democratic Party. They're poised to do that, they're intending to do that, and we just don't need that to happen.”
“So we need everyone to go vote,” she said.
McMain On Candidate Forum
“I've been here many a times,” McMain said when he came to the front of the room. “You've heard me give my stump speech when I was running in the primary.”
“I'm going to skip through most of that,” he said. “I'm going to talk to you about a couple different things, and I want to talk to you about things that we can do to help get us across the finish line on Nov. 3.”
McMain said he attended the Sept. 24 candidate forum sponsored by The Oconee Enterprise and Oconee County Observations, and “the themes coming from my opponent, or the themes coming from Dutch's opponent, and from Ward's opponent, was that Georgia needs new direction, that they've been under Republican leadership for too long.”
“And it's the most shocking thing to me,” McMain said, “because of what has happened in the past 20 years. People are leaving Democrat-run states to come to Georgia. They're leaving Democrat-run states to come to Florida, to come to Alabama, to come to states that are under Republican leadership.”
“Why?” he asked, “Because we've created this fantastic place to live. Could you think of a better state to live in than Georgia or Florida?”
“I think in Walton, in Barrow, in Morgan, in Oconee, in Jackson, we're doing it the right way,” McMain said. “And the common denominator is Republican leadership. You can't argue these facts. These are facts.”
Senate District 46 includes all of Oconee County, parts of Walton and Barrow counties, but also parts of Gwinnett and Clarke counties, which vote Democratic.
Ray Smith is the Democratic candidate in the 46th Senate race. Suzanna Karatassos is the Democratic Party candidate in House District 120. Incumbent Democrat Eric Gisler is seeking reelection in the 121st House District. He defeated Guest in a special election in December.
Guest did not attend the Sept. 23 Republican Party Meeting.
McMain On Personal Contacts
“How do we win come November 3rd?” McMain asked the audience in the Piedmont Oconee Health Campus meeting room. “What can we do?”
When someone yelled out “Go door to door,” McMain responded with “Oh, man, I love you. Door to door. Hands down the most effective way to influence a voter. Door to door.”
“One-on-one. Face-to-face,” an audience member said.
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| McMain 9/28/2026 |
“That's a great answer,” McMain said. “I like that. One-on-one. All right, so I love grassroots.”
“I think your inhibitions, your fears of knocking on someone's door, is a little bit inflated,” he said. “It's uncomfortable, but once you get in that groove, you're going to find out that people will appreciate the fact that you took time out of your day to go and engage them one-on-one.”
Hand-written postcards was another technique suggested.
“I love that. Grassroots 101,” McMain said. “People get that postcard, that's going to get read more than the postcard that's just completely filled out, like a graphic-filled postcard. So when it's handwritten, that means something.”
Phone-banking was another suggestion.
“If you're willing to knock doors, if you're willing to make phone calls, if you're willing to write postcards,” McMain said. “What's the last thing that you can do if you don't want to do any of those? There's one more thing you can do. What is it?”
“You can write a check,” he said, “because all these things cost money. Door knockers, it's hard to get volunteers to knock doors anymore. So we’re having to pay $2 to $4 per door. Postcards cost money. The material to hand out costs money. Phone banking costs money.”
“So I would much rather you do something grassroots,” he said. “I would much rather you take the time and make phone calls, write postcards, knock on doors. But if you can't, there's always a way to contribute.”
Black On Social Media, DSA
Black, following McMain, said “I'm going to add one more thing” to the list of suggested activities to get Republicans elected in November.
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| Black 9/28/2026 |
“But before that,” he said, “for those of you all who I haven't had a chance to meet yet, I'm Ward Black. My wife Anna and I live in Commerce, but this area is home. It's where I grew up.”
“I am a University of Georgia graduate,” he continued. “I'm in the landscape supply business.”
Oconee Northeast Precinct is in House District 120, with parts of Barrow, Clarke, and Jackson counties.
Oconee South, Oconee Central, and Dark Corner precincts are in House Districts 121, with parts of Clarke County.
“Everybody in the room has a Facebook acount,” Black said. “Or you know somebody who does.”
“If you’re not following us already, follow me, Dutch, and Marc,” he said.
“And then scroll through the content,” he said. “And then the biggest thing that will help us in our material showing up in different people's platforms is to like it, share it, and add some commentary on it.”
“What that will do, given the way that happens behind the scenes, the more impressions like that, a like will do great,” he said. “The more shares, the more comments that a post will get, and it will just add to the more and more people that will see it that may not be following us, but they're friends with you on Facebook.”
“So I want to add that to all the list of potential touches that we can have,” he said. “Between postcards, contacts, and such.”
“The legislature is our last line of defense when it comes to fill-in-the-blank policies that the other side wants to throw against the wall to see if it will work,” Black said.
“There are two members of the Georgia State House--two that we know of--that are publicly endorsing DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) policies.”
“So just keep that in mind as we're doing all this work for contacting voters,” he said. “We have the ability to not only have the last line of defense between those policies on the left, but also build a firm foundation for good policies that we have to benefit Georgians for generations to come.”
Cruz On Manufacturing
When Woods did not show up for the meeting, Hurley announced that Cruz “has asked for just a couple of minutes to talk.”
Cruz, who ran unsuccessfully in the Republican Party Primary in 2024 for Oconee County Commission Post 4, did not come to the podium, but she stood and talked for 12 minutes. McMain had talked for 19 minutes, and Black for 12.
“President Trump is not on the ticket this November,” Cruz began. “We all know that. So there's not going to be that draw. Plus, he's had almost two years now of his agenda, his America First agenda, and some of us can see what's happening with that and some of us can't because it's not on the mainstream media.”
Cruz said she and her husband, Stephen Aleshire, created a flyer listing “all the new construction, new industry, new investment in Georgia since January of this year. Just January of this year. And there are, like billions of dollars of investment here in Georgia.”
"President Trump is bring American Industry home," the flyer announces.
Included on the list is the UCB, headquarted in Belgium, announcement to build a biologics manufacturing facility in the Rowen innovation district in Gwinnett County, the Walmart fulfillment center in Carnesville announced by Gov. Brian Kemp in August, and the Korean company DeltaX battery manufacturing facility in Walton County, also announced by Gov. Kemp in August.
“But what we do need right now are people to fill the manufacturing or the construction jobs,” Cruz said. “We don't have enough construction or skilled workers to do all the construction that's necessary in the time needed.”
“So that is how we're going to solve this affordability problem,” she said. “Free trade came in and global policies, and we came off the gold standard, and everything started going down. Wall Street started determining what would be successful here, and they determined that all industries should go abroad where we get cheap labor.”
Cruz on Gas Prices, Debt
“Educate yourself on how to respond to people who say, ‘Why are gas prices so high?’” Cruz said. “They're so high because of the war in Iran. Why is the war in Iran important? Because the Central banks of London have been controlling the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz and using that as a trigger point.”
“So what did President Trump do?” she said. “He comes in with the government and says the Navy, we will insure your ships and we will guide your ships through the Strait of Hormuz. So oil is flowing there, but the media is still trying to say that that's the main reason, especially diesel lately.”
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| Cruz 9/28/2026 |
“Diesel is high because we don't refine here anymore,” she continued. “Why don't we refine? Because of years of green energy policies that said ‘no refineries, no coal mining, no raping our land. We have to save our land. We have to put up solar, wind.’ And that is not the policy that President Trump is following.”
“We are very much in debt,” she said.
“What Trump is doing instead is reindustrializing so that we start making products,” Cruz said. “It's only by increasing our gross domestic production, our GDP, that we can start selling products, making products here, selling products, and bringing down that national debt. That's the way we get out of it, and it can happen.”
Cruz said she attended the Sept. 23 candidate forum sponsored by the Oconee County Farm Bureau, “and indeed it was all Trump, Trump, Trump. Republicans did all this. Republicans are responsible for all our problems, for the high cost of everything.”
“That's not true,” Cruz said. “We know that's not true.”
The public does not know “it's not true,” she said. “They need to know what we need to do to reverse that. And it's not socialism. It's absolutely not socialism. We will sink deeper and deeper into abject poverty if we let that continue,” Cruz said.
“And for me, how to solve it is to vote Republican, to vote Red all the way down, because no Democrat coalition is going to support what Trump is doing just because Trump is bad, you know, orange man bad,” she said. “That is not a great policy. And that is not a policy that is going to help our country.”
“So Trump is not on the ticket,” she said. “I know a lot of you are sort of shrinking back from mentioning him because he's such a trigger point for the left. So get around that by just pointing out the good things that are happening.”
Note: The Republican Party does not allow video or audio recording of its meetings.
2 comments:
Kathy Hurley's comment, "“You may not like exactly what's going on ... but you're a whole lot more likely to get it changed with Republicans in office than you ever will with Democrats” is odd. Does she realize that the Republicans are the ones running the show in Georgia and the nation? Re-electing them won't change anything. It will be more of the same. Kathleen Cason, Athens, GA
I know I won't change anyone's view of the world but the US already produces and exports the most diesel in the world, and the "Central banks of London", whatever that is supposed to mean, have nothing to do with restricting tanker movement in Hormuz.
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