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Kelley said Oxfordfest is a great opportunity to interact with people, find out what’s on people’s minds and to get their views.  

“We had a ton of visitors that came up and spent time sharing things, encouraging us, some shared some of their thoughts and views on things,” Kelley said.

Kelley said that education was on the minds of many.

“They wanted to talk about some of the decisions that school boards have made, there was lot of people that spoke very favorably of our local school boards,” Kelley said, “When you compare some of the things that are going on nationwide, our school boards have done a pretty good job here and that was very favorable.”

The festival visitors’ opinion was that schools need to get back to basics and teach “real history” instead of a “politicalized” version of past events, Kelley recalled, although who might have done that and what they said wasn’t specified. 

Besides education, Kelley said that inflation was a hot topic among the people he spoke with.  

“One of the other things that people wanted to talk about was the economy and the price of food that has skyrocketed under our current president, and that was a major concern,” he said.

“We talked about a lot of things such as the supply chain issues, farmers are having trouble getting some of the things they need, fertilizer and various things to get their crops in and then you’ve got to get those crops to the market, and that’s a real concern of people,” Kelley said.

He said that if he’s elected he has a plan to help with the inflation and supply chain woes. 

“I think one of the things we have to do is take a look at the things that we commonly refer to as red tape that stand in the way or delay the supply chains, and look at the different aspects of that — where those problems actually are, and what is causing those problems,” he said. 

“For example in the trucking industry you can go talk to the truckers themselves, the farmers, you listen to what they’re saying,” Kelley said. 

Some of the problems farmers are having such as getting fertilizers is a nationwide and world problem, Kelley said. 

“Many times people don’t look at the war in the Ukraine as affecting Alabama but that has affected a lot of what is supplied,” Kelley said.

Ukraine is an exporter of wheat and the war has had an effect on how much the central European country typically exports. 

Kelley said the price of crude oil, which goes into making gasoline, diesel fuel and building supplies, keeps rising. 

“We have to take a look at what it is in each industry because the problems are not just on the surface level, you’ve got to get to where the source really is, and find out what that solution is,” he said. 

Kelley has been steadfast in his position on gambling and a statewide lottery for Alabama. 

While not personally in favor of gambling, Kelley said if the regulatory part or the “back part” of a lottery does not leave room for corruption he is “not necessarily opposed” to the measure going to the ballot box for the people to decide. 

Kelley said he was in favor of the recent Supreme Court decision that makes it more difficult generally for women to obtain abortions nationwide, by removing federal protection instituted under Roe v Wade in 1973.

 “Nationally the Supreme Court decision really put a little more authority and power back to the states on deciding those issues,” Kelley said, noting that Alabama’s abortion law was one of the more restrictive in the country. 

“The Supreme Court decision, what that did was to put that decision back to the states, instead of at the federal level,” Kelley said.

Kelley said his campaigning is going well.

“It’s been really good to see people and get their feelings and where their thoughts are and what they think needs to be done and frankly what they see as some of the issues are,” he said.

Kelley said that different viewpoints help vet different subjects.

Kelley said there are fundamental differences between himself and his Democratic opponent, Danny McCullars. 

“In this race to the general election it’s a very big difference between me being a conservative and my opponent who is more issue based now,” Kelley said. 

“On social issues I’m most definitely the consertive one, my opponent is on the Democratic side and feels a little more towards the national scene and does,” he said. 

“It comes down to where people want a more liberal candidate in place to represent them or a more conservative,” Kelley said. 

Kelley said that there is a lot of division in the country that goes through the state level. 

“I’ve built a career having to build coalitions and have different parties come to agreement, in what I do for a living, a lot of that on the commercial side is negotiating and getting different sides to come to an agreement,” Kelley said. 

“In Montgomery, we’ve got to have the ability to reach across the aisle to have smart decisions made and come to more of a consensus and agreement,” he said. 

McCullars spent the day at Oxfordfest interacting with voters and said he sensed enthusiasm in the people he talked to.

“You could really sense an excitement, you hate to go out on too much of a limb here but there is an excitement about going to the voting booth,” McCullars said.

“At Oxfordfest we got to talk about substantial issues and we got to have fun. I think everybody had a great time and it was a great opportunity to be there, and I appreciate the opportunity,” he said. 

McCullars was also upbeat about the progress of his campaign. 

“I’m pleasantly surprised with where we are today, there are a couple of things I’m seeing out there on the campaign trail that would be in line with my hopes,” McCullars said, “There are a lot of people, mainly women, engaged, we all kinda wondered how the decision out of Washington, Roe vs. Wade, would affect women in particular.”

“We’ve got to get to the voting booth, for the first time we have lost material privacy in this country and I don’t believe anybody knows what that means exactly yet, in talking to these folks I was hugged by ladies at Oxfordfest,” McCullars said.

“The issue of privacy and the possibility of contraception and then in all of this, nobody’s really talked about the states that are establishing life begins at conception or fertilization; that’s going to shut down fertility clinics,” he said.

“Of course we talked about some of my other stances, and I’m really on the train of trying to eliminate the grocery tax,” he said. 

McCullars said there are pitfalls of eliminating the grocery tax because those funds go into the education trust fund. 

“There’s got to be a new revenue stream coming in, and I believe that we’re to the point of almost talking about that, I know a lot of candidates are for eliminating the grocery tax at the same time it has some complicating factors the main one being a half billion dollars from the education trust fund,” he said.

McCullars is running as a Democrat in a state as red as Mars.

“I’m not naive running as a Democrat in a very obviously red Republican area,” he said. 

McCullars said he recently visited a Jack’s restaurant to reach out and interact with the morning crowd that were huddled around tables holding court and solving the world’s problems. 

“I just invited myself up and these guys are mainly historically Republican but I mean there are conversations welcome and I see that as a positive thing,” he said. 

McCullars said the recent Roe vs. Wade decision has had a detrimental effect on women. 

“What’s at stake for women is the obvious, they have lost control of their bodies, how far will the state take this and by state I mean government in policing this I don’t really know,” he said. 

McCullars fears that if a woman has a miscarriage a social worker may be called in to investigate if the woman had caused her own miscarriage. 

“What’s at stake for them is a tremendous loss of autonomy and rights. Of course it’s been shaved over by just the abortion part of it, but privacy, we think of privacy and my entire life I’ve been able to take it for granted and so have women,” he said, “They back up and say, ‘Whoa this is us,’ but as a man we should pause too and say,  ‘whoa what’s next,’ if privacy is not in the constitution then what possibly can be next.”

McCullars said he believed the loss of privacy is very concerning even to traditional evangelical churchgoing folks. 

The country McCullars grew up in is changing. 

“Demographics in America are changing and they’re changing quickly. We are a browning country, we are a country of immigrants, at some point in time there’ve been people trying to come into America and there’ve been people trying to keep those people out of America,” McCullars said.

“I don’t think it’s anything new or unusual, except the tone of skin maybe,” he added. 

As far as gambling and Alabama’s long flirtation with instituting a state lottery, McCullars said it’s ingrained in society.

“The lottery is the easy part, these casino interests are tough. I am of the belief that gambling just by its nature hurts poor and disadvantaged  people,” he said.

“If we go the lottery route, which it appears as if we are, I’m open to having the people take a look at it quite frankly and I think the people of Alabama want it by and large,” McCullars said.

McCullars said the proceeds from a state lottery could help replace funds lost if the grocery tax is eliminated.

McCullars said that his opponent Keith Kelley had known each other for a “long time.”

“I like Keith, he and I talked throughout this process, we’re really acting like politicians should,” McCullars said.

“Keith, he may say the same about me, he is a kinda knee-jerk conservative, and I don’t really know what exactly conservative means today, is it on social issues, is it on financial issues,” McCullars mused. 

One issue on which the two candidates differ is Medicaid expansion.

“We have lost 17 hospitals since 2010, since Medicaid expansion was possible,” he said.   

“I think he sees it as just another welfare entitlement, it’s things like that that are going to differentiate Keith and I,” he said. 

“These traditional Republican vs. Democrat things we’re going to disagree about but there again it’s worth the argument,” McCullars said.

This article has been changed from the print version to correctly state the date of the general election, Nov. 8.