JD Crowe: Hey, Florida Man. Don’t let the baggage hit you on the way out of a debate

PoliticsFlorida Man with baggage running for governor of AlabamaJD CroweThis is an opinion cartoon.When Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch announced his retirement after nearly four decades at the institution, Tommy Tuberville offered this statesmanlike farewell: “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Bunch, the Smithsonian’s first Black secretary and founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, is leaving after a career devoted to making sure America remembers its history — including all the inconvenient truthful parts Trump and red state politicians want buried in the basement.“For too long the Smithsonian has been pushing left-wing propaganda,” Tuberville said on X. “Well guess what? DEI and wokeism is DEAD. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”That’s a mighty interesting lecture on doors coming from the man who is stuck in a revolving door: Is he half enough Alabama, or way more than half Florida?Troubleville is trying to bully through the door of the Alabama governor’s office while dragging enough political baggage to make a Delta gate agent holler for backup.Baggage claimResidency: Tuberville says he lives in a 2-bedroom 1 bath house in Auburn; critics point to his multimillion-dollar Florida beach home, his history of living and voting in Florida, and the fact that his name wasn’t added to the Auburn property until 2024. Related: Tuberville ‘constitutionally ineligible’ to be Alabama governor, court filing claims Support the troops? In 2023, Tuberville spent months blocking hundreds of senior military promotions over the Pentagon’s abortion-travel policy. Military leaders warned that the blockade hurt readiness, morale and military families. Eventually, under mounting bipartisan pressure, he mostly abandoned the hold.Veterans? in 2020, Tuberville promised to donate “every dime” he made in Washington to Alabama veterans. Reporting has found no evidence that he had fulfilled that promise.Fear politics and data centers:As my colleague Kyle Whitmire wrote in his column: Think Tuberville is qualified? Let’s debate: Excerpts:Instead of a heated contest where voters got a say, Alabama had a cakewalk primary where Tuberville became the Republican nominee because:Everybody already knew his name.Donald Trump endorsed him.Everyone else chickened out.The trouble now is that there’s much about Tuberville we don’t know, and not just his home address or whether he ever learned the three branches of government.His political strategy lately has rested on Islamophobia more than ideas about how to make the lives of Alabamians better. His pitch is old Alabama politics: I hate all the same people you hate.But how much else do we really know, especially how he would run the state?Some of what we’ve learned since the primary has been surprising, like his bullish optimism for all the data centers he wants to bring to the state.Related: Doug Jones blasts Tuberville’s financial ties to data centers, calls for strict ethics lawsIt doesn’t seem to matter that many Alabamians of all political stripes have concerns about data centers. If Tommy Tuberville is governor, Alabama is going to, in his words, “do data centers” and that’s that.Read all of Whitmire’s column here.Voters deserve honest answers from both contenders in the Alabama governor’s race. Republican Tuberville and Democrat Doug Jones should debate.Tuberville: ‘There’s no reason to debate.’ Don’t let the baggage hit you on the way out. Tuberville's water brokeJ.D. CroweJD Crowe is the moderately disturbed editorial cartoonist for Alabama Media Group and Al.com. His cartoons, essays and stories have tickled, infuriated and resonated with Alabama readers since 2000. If y'all...