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Opinion | A missed opportunity for the Tubs

Then-candidate Tommy Tuberville speaking in a campaign video. (VIA TUBERVILLE CAMPAIGN)

I’ve been through the speakers’ schedule for the Republican National Convention, and nowhere can I find Tommy Tuberville on the agenda. Maybe I just missed it.

Considering how this convention is going so far, though, Tuberville would be a natural. He loves Donald Trump, almost in an uncomfortable way. And this convention is profoundly sycophantic, so Tubs would fit right in.

So where is he?

Incumbent U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Alabama, was a speaker at last week’s Democratic National Convention. Tuberville came out and said all sorts of nasty things about Jones after he spoke.

But Jones had the courage to speak at the Dems’ convention, knowing that lightweights like Tuberville and Terry Lathan, chair of the Alabama Republican Party, would take unfair shots at him. Jones was unfazed — sticks and stones and all that.

Why didn’t Lathan encourage Coach Tommy to speak at the four-day GOP event? It’s not like he would have to go to Washington D.C. and violate the city’s quarantine law like he did while fundraising in the nation’s capital recently. He could have given his speech from his home. Even the home in Florida.

And there’s no trick getting on the Republicans’ speaking schedule, especially when you are as in love with Trump as Tubby is.

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The Republicans could have used more speakers without the last name “Trump.” It must have been difficult to find them, considering so many of the speakers were Trump’s own family members.

Where was Mary Trump, by the way?

But I digress. If Tuberville had anything at all to say, he should have asked to say it on that national stage and be seen by Trump sycophants the world over.

The Ku Klux Klan could have seen Tubs on their 77-inch 4K UHD television and offered up its important endorsement (Trump gets them all the time). Tubby could have impressed the “boogaloo” boys, that far-right extremist group that wants to take over the government (hint: Wear your Hawaiian shirt, Coach). He could have appealed to the QAnon crowd, and helped eradicate that Democratic Party-run pedophile ring that works out of pizzerias (some with basements, even).

These were huge missed opportunities, so we have to question Tuberville’s judgment.

And if the polls are correct, and Democrats take both the Senate and White House, Tuberville would be without even a little authority if he wins. His colleagues would hardly talk to him — and certainly not those on the other side of the aisle.

Who loses in that setup? Not Tuberville. He’s after the “power”(even though that’s less power than being a college football coach, even a mediocre one, when your party isn’t in control in Washington).

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There’s no way, however, that Tuberville can do for Alabama what Jones can do if he’s re-elected. Jones is highly effective even as a member of the minority party in the Senate. No telling how much Alabama will benefit with Jones in the Senate as a member of the party in control.

I just don’t understand why Tuberville would miss the chance to speak at his party’s national political convention. The exposure would be impressive, even coming from a convention where speakers claim that Trump is a god and “Sleepy” Joe Biden is the antichrist himself.

Tubs’ supporters would have loved to see him speak at the RNC, perhaps right after Kimberly Guilfoyle, Don Jr.’s girlfriend, went completely off the rails Monday night. Or maybe on Night 2, before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke, proving finally, without a doubt, that he truly is a pompous ass. Wednesday night, Tuberville could have preceded presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway, mother of the year, and likely could have picked up some tips on lying for the president and ignoring your family, two areas of expertise Tuberville may need.

The possibilities were endless. But nowhere – nowhere on that lengthy schedule that included the St. Louis gun-toting couple and the Covington, Kentucky, kid who, wearing a red MAGA hat, confronted a Native American at the Lincoln Memorial — was Tommy Tuberville to be found.

So we can come to only one conclusion: Tuberville really doesn’t have anything to say.

Joey Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize winner, writes a column each week for the Alabama Political Reporter. You can email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter.

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