Tommy Tuberville

This is an opinion cartoon.

I have compared data centers to giant heavy metal mosquitoes. In today’s cartoon metaphor, I think Tuberville may be carrying around a pet rat on his data center campaign trail.

He once made a living with his passion for drawing up football plays. Now Coach has a weird crush on what he thinks is a clear winner: data centers.

What’s Tommy Tuberville thinking?

AL.com’s Ruth Serven Smith reports that "Tuberville continues to promote data center projects as he runs for governor of Alabama, suggesting that the industry’s opponents are being encouraged by China."

At a gathering of Alabama sheriffs and law enforcement officials, Tuberville said data center projects will help local communities and boost tax revenue.

“I think there’s 27 states that have already said, ‘Oh, we’re not going to build data centers. We’re not going to do that. It makes too much noise. It’s going to ruin the climate.’ Bull crap,” Tuberville said on Monday in Opelika, as reported by 1819 News.

“I mean, they’re listening to all this nonsense they see on social media that’s coming from China because China does not want us to grow.”

Related: Trump says New York’s data center rule could be ‘cash cow’ for Alabama

Tuberville said the Alabama projects will bring in tax revenue. Large data centers are under construction in Bessemer, Birmingham, Hayneville, Montgomery and elsewhere.

“The tax money that comes from those things is unbelievable for schools, for law enforcement, for anything that’s done,” he said.

Read all of Serven Smith’s AL.com report here.

Everywhere he turns on the campaign trail for governor, Tubby sees another patch of Alabama grass and farmland that ought to be humming with servers, sucking down electricity and water while somebody in a distant corporate headquarters counts the profits.

Read Kyle Whitmire‘s column, which features a video you need to watch, under the headline: Tommy Tuberville wants Alabama ‘to do data centers.’ Come see what that might look like.

Excerpts:

Tommy Tuberville wants to bring more data centers to Alabama.

That wasn’t a gaffe. It wasn’t a flub.

A Tuberville administration will be a data center administration, and he’s proud of it. He calls the public’s concerns with these massive tech developments “bullcrap.”

That’s right. We are going to do data centers. In the days since he spoke to the sheriffs, Tuberville has been asked whether he meant what he said.

He doubled down. Then he tripled down.

I frequently disagree with the senator, but it’s rare that I don’t understand him. When he spews bigotry about Muslims, I can see what he’s up to. There’s a market for it, and he’s selling.

Why a candidate for any office in America would go full data center is beyond me.

Last year, Georgia held elections for that state’s Public Service Commission, and voters showed just how strongly the public has turned against these things. Republicans crossed party lines to elect Democrats who opposed further development.

Read that again. Voters crossed party lines. In the South. For politicians everywhere, even incumbents, that should be terrifying.

But Tuberville seems to see it as some kind of dare. Before Alabama takes the leap with him, it’s worth seeing what “do data centers” might actually look like.

And I know just the place.