Rising electric bills and data center construction spark bipartisan pushback from governors, but restricting AI infrastructure could cost America its lead.
Page A5From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 31 August 2026
AI industry could decide the next president; its cable defender is already on its payroll
As it ran on the front
FOLLOW THE SERVER FARM
Fox News is telling you the data center fight could decide the next president and cost America the AI race. Fine, take that at face value for a second — a fight over server farms, water tables, and electricity bills is now presidential-election material. That's not a small claim. That's an industry telling you its permitting fights are the main event.…
…(cont) Now look at who's already on the payroll. The Lever reports a cable regular who spends his airtime championing centrist Democrats also works for Big AI. Not adjacent to it. Not advised by it once at a conference. Works for it. And he's doing that work on the same channels running segments about which candidates are serious and which aren't.
You don't need a conspiracy board for this one, just a calendar. An industry says its infrastructure fight will decide a presidential election. A guy paid by that industry is on television, right now, telling you which centrist is the responsible one. Nobody made him hide it — The Lever just had to ask, and he told them. That's not a smoking gun, that's a business card.
Here's the part that should bother you even if you like the guy's picks: it doesn't matter whether he's right about any particular Democrat. It matters that the frame he's selling — sensible centrism, don't rock the boat, the adults are in charge — comes from a man whose paycheck depends on nobody rocking the boat the data centers are sitting in. The data centers need cheap power, friendly zoning, and a public that isn't asking too many questions about the water bill. A reassuring, centrist voice on cable is an efficient way to keep that public calm.
This isn't new. It's the same trick with a new industry logo on it. Oil had its friendly experts. Tobacco had its friendly doctors. Now the servers have their friendly Democrat. The fight itself is real — water tables don't lie, power bills don't lie — but the man telling you it's all fine for the party you should trust is cashing a check from the industry asking you to trust it. Watch whose lights stay on.
“Fox is telling you a fight over server farms could decide a presidential election. The Lever is telling you the guy calming everybody down about it on cable works for the industry running the servers. That's not a coincidence, that's a business card.”
“Public-private partnership, plain and simple — experts from industry belong in the conversation, that's just expertise, it's not like — well, he is being paid specifically by the industry whose politics he's shaping on air, but that's disclosure, which is basically the same as neutrality, I'm told.”
The receipts
Former Rep. Max Rose helps lead an influential network intervening in Democratic primaries — while quietly advising a tech-funded political operation targeting AI regulation.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.