Hudson Holliday is running for governor out of a sense of duty.
“I felt compelled to do this,” the lifelong Pearl River County resident said.
“I feel like this country was founded on the proposition that successful people would go serve a term or two (in government) and go home.
“They (the founding fathers) never envisioned career politicians,” the first-term Pearl River County supervisor said. “I’m not a career politician.”
Holliday, 66, is running as a Republican. He believes Mississippi has to do a better job of improving and promoting itself and attracting business and industry to move forward.
“I want a better future for my children and my grandchildren,” he said. “I’m tired of us being poor. I’m tired of this state being looked down upon by everyone in this country.”
“If you don’t want a better future for your children and grandchildren, I don’t want your vote. If you do, get aboard and let’s move this thing forward.”
Mississippi, Holliday said, has the people and the natural resources to attract new business and industry.
“We have great colleges and universities, a great community college system and good hospitals,” he said. “It’s cheaper to live here, land’s plentiful, crime is low — compared to a lot of places — taxes are low, and rules and regulations are not so invasive.”
But Mississippi remains on the bottom because of its image, Holliday said.
People in Mississippi, he said, need to work together “and dispel that image that we’re backward, barefoot and ignorant, and live on gravel roads and don’t wear shoes.”
Part of his plan to change the state’s image, Holliday said, involves the state’s education system, which he said is broken, “and more money is not the solution.”
“We’re going to have an education summit in the middle of March (during his campaign,” he said.
“We’re pulling together teachers and superintendents from around the state, we’re going to have a summit to sit down around a table and say, ‘how do we fix eduction?’
“I want to lay out a road map for how we improve education, and we’ll do that in the month of March, way before the election, so people will know that I’m serious about it,” he said.
He also wants to change the way the state attracts business and industry.
“Our economic development strategy in Mississippi is — for the lack of a better word — we go out and try to bribe major companies to come to Mississippi,” Holliday said.
“When these people come here, we give them everything we can — and then some — to get them to come,” he said. “We’ve been successful at doing that, but that’s a short-term strategy.”
Holliday said Mississippi needs a long-term strategy that will improve its business environment so people will want to come to Mississippi.
Changing the state’s image, he said will attract small businesses to Mississippi that will grow the state’s economy better than a few large businesses.
Holliday, who is a real estate broker, said he has owned and operated several businesses during his life.
“I think the experience I have over the years of doing a little bit of everything gives me an insight in how government affects business,” he said.
Holliday and his wife Paulette have been married for 44 years and have three children, sons Bradley and Michael, and a daughter, Heather.
He has two grandchildren, Zach, a student in community college, and Elizabeth, a first grade student.
“That’s the reason I’m in this race,” he said, referring to his grandchildren.
“I’m not a big Republican,” Holliday said. “Once elected, I’m going to be open to whoever has the right ideas, and it won’t matter who it is.
“We can’t continue this struggle. The Republicans and Democrats are destroying this country. They’re putting party ahead of principle. You see it everyday.
“I tell everybody this — ‘we must all start working together, stop being Republicans and Democrats, and let’s start being Mississippians and Americans,’ Holliday said.
