By TODD STACY, Alabama Daily News
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Tommy Tuberville does not care about your need for nuance.
In a political landscape where tricky issues can sometimes cause politicians to split hairs on policy, the former football coach and current U.S. Senate candidate has found a winning formula: be blunt, keep it simple and always pivot back to President Donald Trump.
Though seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Alabama is Tuberville’s first foray into elected government, politics was always part of his job in the 20 years he spent as a head coach at big-time college football programs. During his ten-year stint at Auburn, Tuberville was known for deftly handling the media, sometimes by answering the question he wanted to answer, rather than what had been asked.
Staying on message and avoiding the weeds of an issue is a valuable skill for politicians, and having advanced practice at it has made Tuberville a dangerous competitor in this GOP Senate race.
And yet it is the pesky particulars on which Tuberville’s opponents are honing in to attack him, specifically on the issue of immigration. In a speech to the Shoals Republican Club in August 2019, Tuberville discussed the need to build a wall on the southern border and tighten up immigration enforcement so that the U.S. can “know who’s here.”
As far as Republican speeches in Alabama go, that’s pretty much par for the course. However, it was Tuberville’s discussing what comes next that seemed to get him into trouble.
“There are people coming across the border that need jobs, okay, and we want them to come over here. We just need to know who’s here, okay?” he said. “Put the wall up, then we let them come in and become citizens like we all became citizens.”
Partial audio of that quote has been running on repeat over the Alabama airwaves, courtesy of Tuberville’s top opponents, former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and 1st District Congressman Bradley Byrne, as well as at least one super PAC. They accuse Tuberville of supporting “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.
Undeterred, Tuberville quickly called the attack “fake news” and his campaign shot right back in ads attacking Byrne and Sessions.
Sound familiar? Ever the clever coach, Tuberville has co-opted the Trump playbook.
When we sat down for an interview recently inside the Kress Building in downtown Montgomery, I wanted to ask Tuberville about the topic of illegal immigration, both to give him an opportunity to respond to his critics and discover what his actual views are given the back-and-forth. And while he talked about the issue at length, being sure, of course, to denounce amnesty, there wasn’t much actual policy. Rather, what Tuberville has on immigration is what he has on most policy issues: a general, visceral feeling that the way the country has been doing things is wrong and that the current crop of politicians is to blame. And guess who has all the answers?
Be blunt, keep it simple and always pivot back to Donald Trump.
And while such a non-nuanced way of answering might frustrate the devil out of seasoned politicians, it’s exactly what has made him an effective candidate in this race. Why? Because he talks about issues the way normal people do. Voters once greatly valued expertise and experience in their elected leaders, but many now find those qualities to be a vice and their absence a virtue.
As the race enters its final week, Tuberville is well-positioned to make a potential runoff. Should no candidate finish with more than 50% of the vote in the March 3 primary election, the top two voter earners would go to a runoff scheduled for March 31. Most polls, including a recent Alabama Daily News / Mason-Dixon poll...