Tommy Tuberville

This is an opinion.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville thinks he can’t lose.

Like going to Vandy in 2008, prolly.

He thinks the race for Alabama governor is over. He doesn’t even bother to stick a finger in his mouth and hold it up in the air to see which way the wind blows.

Tubs just goes all in. Data Centers are a gold mine, he says, even as opposition to them seems to be the one thing Alabamians can agree on. Concerns about the mammoth facilities are “bull crap,” as our sitting U.S. Senator so delicately put it.

So if you’re worried about your neighborhood or your health or millions in government incentives or your job or the environment or the character of your community or state, Coach doesn’t care. I guess he figures he doesn’t need to.

He’s got the red check behind his name, after all, and that’s pretty much like having Cadillac Williams and Ronnie Brown in the same backfield.

He must think he can’t be beat. Or he wouldn’t stand in front of the U.S Senate like he did last month, calling Social Security a “scam” and a “big, gigantic, blown up Ponzi scheme.” Like he wants us to just give up on it.

Data centers: Full steam ahead.

Social Security: The heck with it.

This in a state where 57% of those who showed up to vote in the 2020 general election were 50 or older, staring down the barrel of retirement or into it. In 2024 they made up 59%.

This is what they call in the football business “bulletin board material.”

You might think you can’t lose, but you never show it. You never say it out loud. Because in truth the only way Tuberville can lose this race to Democrat Doug Jones is if he keeps acting like he can’t be beat, if he keeps believing his bluster carries more weight than what Alabamians hold dear.

This guy is letting Jones hang around. Polls may tell him he can’t lose. But polls can’t predict voters who might decide to just sit this one out.

For that to happen the hypocrisy will have to hit critical mass. Surely that can’t be far away. This is a guy who, as Lagniappe to its credit reported citing IRS records, has already collected $93,000 in Social Security payments on top of his Senate salary and the millions he took from Auburn to leave campus.

Tuberville should know about schemes. Before taking office he lost a bundle as a partner in a financial firm that, according to court records cited by the New York Times, “had the optics of a Ponzi scheme” and was shut down by regulators. His business partner went to prison and Tuberville lost $2 million. Since taking office he has drawn criticism for trading stocks related to committees he serves on, though he lays that at the feet of his broker.

Now he argues that Social Security should be trading in the risky stock market instead of investing in U.S. Treasury bonds, which in addition to being particularly safe investments also have the side benefit of helping to stabilize America’s economy.

How does anybody pay attention to Tommy Tuberville and not come away thinking he’ll do anything for money, and won’t do anything without it? How does anybody listen to him and truly believe he has their best interests at heart?

Still, people keep telling Tubs he can’t lose.

Nick Saban, the guy who put the 36-0 question mark on Tubs’ Auburn career, would call that “rat poison.”