Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and House Minority Leader Mike Hubbard were among the many guest speakers at last week’s press conference and rally for House Seat 40 candidate K.L. Brown. The event was sponsored by Jacksonville State’s College Republicans and was held at Merrill Hall. Brown used the event to explain where he stands on the issues and to tell why this election matters so much.

Kicking off the rally was Bill Lester, Calhoun County 2010 Victory Chairman. He ran against Brown in the Republican Primary, but is now putting his support behind him.

“This is the opening battle, and we need to win this,” said Brown. “It says ‘Ricky Whaley working for all of us’ that is unless you support charter schools, unless you’re a home school dad, which I am, and we need a man like K.L. Brown.”

Gene Howard, Chairman of the Calhoun County Republican Party, addressed those in attendance about being a Republican.

“This is a good year to be a Republican in the state of Alabama,” said Howard. “We would have never thought two years ago when K.L. and I sat down and started talking campaigns that this would end up being a crossroads, important, all consuming race that it was. But, tragedy has brought it to us and the Democratic Party has fought us hard, and K.L. and the Republican Party has stood up.”

Howard summed up his speech by showing the differences between the two parties.

“Go to the polls Tuesday,” said Howard. “There are more of you than there are of them. We offer a better chance, a better idea. They spend your money, they tax you, they get involved in your business, they slow things down, and whenever they are in a city or town that is dominated by Democratic politics, they fail, brothers and sisters, they fail.”

Hubbard told why this was such a crucial election.

Not just because we can send Republican number 45 to the House of Representatives, which makes us only 8 away from the majority, but it sends a message,” he said. “This is the first opportunity in the state of Alabama to elect a Republican in 2010. We can send a great message to the rest of the state, and to the Democrats.”

Hubbard then addressed rumors around Brown’s campaign.

“You get these awful mail pieces out about you, ‘K.L. didn’t pay his taxes’ and ‘K.L. is in violation, he broke the law,’ and none of that is true. We even have a letter from the Secretary of State saying that he is in full compliance, but they just make it up. Because they are Democrats. They can lie. If they are moving their mouth, they are lying.”

Hubbard told where he thought the claims are coming from.

“The AEA, which is the same thing as the Alabama Democratic Party, would absolutely control the Democratic candidate, there is no doubt about it. They are funding his campaign, they are running all the negative things that they are saying, and how can you say anything negative about K.L. Brown, that’s impossible.”

Senator Del Marsh urged those in attendance to help get Brown elected.

“I watch the Democrats control the House and the Senate and all of the committees, and one of the first things they did was that we had a resolution for the Teacher’s Code of Ethics that the Governor put out, and they voted it down,” said Marsh. “Didn’t want to alter it or fix it or think it could be better, they just flat voted it down. That’s wrong. We have bills in committees to employ those in the state of Alabama and small businesses, and we can’t even get the bills out of committee for a vote. It’s critical to send Republicans to the legislature to help us get control. This begins the battle for control of the legislature, and it can begin right here in Jacksonville.”

Riley said the Brown is the type of man the state needs.

“We need people down there that are business people. We need people down there that has made a payroll,” said Riley. “They understand what it’s like with all the challenges we face. We have been down there almost a third of our legislative session so far, and we haven’t done anything except talk about some silly gambling bill that is only going to benefit five people in the state of Alabama, watch them vote down a Teacher’s Code of Ethics, kill everything that we have purposed…the only thing I have asked them to do is to go down there and pass our jobs bill so we can give a tax credit off of your income tax if you go out and hire someone who is unemployed, and they won’t even bring it out of committee. That’s the reason we need people that understand how important it is to hire people again in the state of Alabama.”

Brown thanked all those in attendance and asked for their support.

“Special elections are very different,” said Brown. “In the end, it all comes down to who can get their supporters out to vote. We know our message has resonated with a lot of the people around the district and that they share our conservative values and our love for this district that we live in.”

The rally was not without controversy, however, as the Alabama Democrats put out a press release before the event stating, “The Alabama Democratic Party demands the immediate resignation of Don Killingsworth, director of Government Relations at Jacksonville State University, and calls for the cancellation of a planned political rally after a blatant display of partisanship on what Killingsworth himself termed a “no electioneering” campus. The University is displaying on the prominent electronic billboard in front of campus an advertisement touting a political rally for Republican candidate K.L. Brown, violating state law and promoting flagrant favoritism using taxpayer dollars.”