Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to her book “What happened”, Hillary Clinton’s biggest regret was joking about putting coal miners out of business because climate.
Hillary Clinton: Here’s the misstep from the campaign I regret the most
ELIZA RELMAN
SEP 7, 2017, 12:30 AM
In her new book “What Happened” — officially out on September 12 — Hillary Clinton wrote that her biggest regret from the the campaign trail was saying that she would put coal miners out of business.
…
Clinton made the remark during a town hall in Columbus, Ohio in March 2016, during which she touted her plan to replace fossil fuel-based energy production with renewable systems.
“I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country,” she said. “Because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
…
Clinton later called the comment a “misstatement” that she mistakenly made “out of context.”
But the remark sparked a backlash against Clinton and haunted her throughout the campaign, which Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump worked to center around the suffering of white working class Americans, with a particular focus on struggling coal miners.
…
Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/hillary-clinton-biggest-campaign-mistake-2017-9
Coal mining is a big deal in Pennsylvania. According to Better with Coal, the coal industry provides approximately 36,200 jobs, 13,000 of which are directly related to coal mining. Coal mining average wages are about $30,000 higher than the average of Pennsylvania private sector jobs.
Pennsylvania also currently casts 20 electoral votes in Presidential elections. In the six elections prior to 2016, Pennsylvania voted Democrat. President Trump only won Pennsylvania by 0.7%.
If Hillary Clinton identifies hostility to the coal industry as her biggest regret, it really makes one wonder what conversations are occurring behind closed doors in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party. States like Pennsylvania are winnable – providing the Democrats tone down their green rhetoric, and remember that some of their supporters have real jobs.
Perhaps the climate movement has fewer friends than they thought.
As all experienced politicians know, telling the truth can be a terrible mistake.
I’m assuming you mean she was being honest about her intentions not expressing a “Truth”?
Coal is a resource used in thousands of products.
The actual issue “Truth” — USA Politics no longer represents the true needs of the People.
Their methodology and intent negates progress.
Why were we so foolish to “Believe” they are “Statespersons “….
John M, they are the real “deplorables”
(I feel that word turned many voters against her.)
She made that comment, the one about ‘deplorables’ ( applicable to the same people basically) in a broader context where the coal mining and other mid west industrial States were being and had been for years sneeringly referred to as ‘the Rust Belt’. Her disconnect was much greater than she lets on. She may as well have lit a match in a kitchen with a gas leak that had been running for hours.
All she has done is clearly illustrate the utter arrogance of the US ‘beltway elites’. Beltway scum is far mor accurate.
Good riddance to her I say. Goodby Hillary, your career was a giant fart that finally caught fire.
Warmunists are really racing to the bottom now: They used the winning Miss America contestant as a shill to bash Trump for pulling out of Paris. This is really a new LOW. They tried to box other contestants into answering “questions” the only “right” answer to was bashing Trump as well. If that’s what they’re resorting to, this “narrative” is on the ropes indeed! Time to deal it the knockout punch.
Why human condition when the topic is coal as a resource?
I think this has reached a point where it works against them now.
More often than not, they fail to recognize the truth in favor of false truths that fit a political narrative.
What “Truth” — there isn’t anything approaching a “Truth” in this post — so far.
Telling the truth is known in DC as “a Kingsley gaffe.” (He defined a gaffe as occuring when a poln told the truth.)
“Clinton later called the comment a “misstatement” that she mistakenly made “out of context.” ”
It is impossible for a speaker to “speak out of context” as they are the one making the context. She is even a terrible liar.
Just make sure we hang the coal statement around their necks as we know the left hates coal. Her “mistake” is still who she is, as it is for all Democrats. THEY HATE COAL, oil and gas.
She was lazy and arrogant. She didn’t even campaign in some states. The world dodged a bullet.
+1
There are many bullets to dodge like Al Gore for President etc.
Perhaps instead of POTUS, AlGore should run for SGOTUN. If he did, and won the seat, the next Ice Age would surely begin regardless of the atmospheric concentration of CO2.
I don’t know what a SGOTUN is but I wouldn’t consider him for a SCROTUM.
Secretary General Of The UN.
John,
Never confuse Being one with Having one
I probably think less of Al Gore than you do but I never thought of sending him screaming into a pit of fire. Clinton is true evil. Gore was just a politician.
How true!!
Arrogance is a keynote of this article and of her downfall and of her privileged position as ex-first lady and grifter in chief. There is no honest contrition in this admission of error. She claims it was a mis-statement or misunderstanding when it was no such thing. She was jubilant about the prospect of demolishing the coal industry.
She is a chronic liar. Now she says she was going to create great jobs by eliminating great jobs. What a farce! It only reveals what she thinks of people who do tough jobs at the base of the economy upon which she is a parasite.
Classic blame the voters not your policies.
I agree completely with this perspective. I have re listened to her speech and she is NOT joking! The ‘mistake’ was therefore her JUDGEMENT where that statement was assumed to be what the coal belt voters wanted to hear. REALLY BAD JUDGEMENT! It is proof that the voters agreed that she has very bad judgement and refused to elect her. We are all very lucky she said it. Thank you Hillary!
She meant what she said, just that it was a “mistake” to say it. She had every intention of continuing with Obama’s misguided anti-fossil fuel, coal-killing policies.
Obviously, but they no longer talk to people, only heads of advocacy groups count and they will accept it as a “mistake” for a favor of course.
That is the Correct analysis Bruce. Agree completely.
She meant and believes what she said, she just regrets being candid about it.
Further, even if she didn’t fully buy into it (shutting down coal), her rabid eco-wingnut supporters would have held her to it. She would have been forced to nominate more econutters and renewable energy cronies to all hundreds of the various agencies and department posts where energy, environment, land use, transportation rules and regs are made and enforced.
Yes, politicians can get into real trouble when they’re candid about their true beliefs. That’s why they hire experts and conduct poling to help them craft their message when running for office. You can find video of both Hillary and Obama saying they believed marriage was between a man and a woman. Yet today, Hillary claims she always supported gay rights and gay marriage. Perhaps she did and just didn’t have the courage to tell the truth when she thought it might cost her votes. And Obama didn’t just ‘evolve’ his views after becoming President, as claimed. He gradually revealed his true beliefs after it became safer to do so.
In a private setting before he ran for President, Obama expressed his view that he wanted energy prices to “skyrocket.” But he didn’t repeat that remark during his presidential campaign. He was smart enough not to tell the truth while campaigning. Hillary, when it came to her true views about coal, not so much. Public deception is part of politics, yet voters are often the last to believe that the person they voted for deceived them.
Absolutely, I’ll bet she didn’t think the coal industry would hear her, but she meant every stinking word.
This reminds me how glad I am she lost.
Did you really need a reminder?
Please never again forget.
That woman is setting back women’s equality 100 years. Every time a lady runs for office, or applies for a job, everyone’s going to visualize a long, long season of WHINING for every loss or deal gone wrong. Would you hire someone who comes in with a chip on their shoulder, is waiting like a spider for a crooked look or “microagressive” word so they can freak out and SUE? Whose every blurting and freak-flag sartorial choice is “protected” in the name of “self-expression?” I for one sure wouldn’t! When “activist” recent collegiate SJW’s start interviewing, a lot are going to find their names in the “round file!” If there’s any doubt, think of Hillary and consider!
In her case this quote might be appropriate:
“The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.
Her book will be used in future clinical psychology classes.
This is a very good read:
http://counsellingresource.com/features/2009/02/27/blame-game/
…and I encourage anyone who needs a doorstop, or booster seat to buy it as well!
Bulls-eye!
There’s always this:
Saturday or Sunday was the 1st anniversary of her “deplorables” comment. It immediately converted me from being opposed to Clinton to enthusiastically supporting Trump.
This is funny…
Is she saying that she took her own quote out of context?
Is a misstatement mistakenly made, a double-negative?
That is funny, because true!
Not just PA is a coal state. The key swing state of OH is, too. WV used to be a swing state, but hasn’t been for a long time, because God and guns, even before coal. Ditto KY. The only eastern coal state Clinton carried was VA.
Virginia is a very, very minor player in the coal industry. Deep-blue NOVA is what drives the state nowadays.
Unfortunately.
Yes, VA is getting ever more “Progressive”, thanks to the unbridled growth of the federal monstrosity.
As of 2014, VA had sunk to #15 among coal-producing states. In 2015, the Top 15 were WY (42% of total), WV (11%), KY (7%), IL (6%), PA (6%), MT, TX, IN, ND, CO, OH, NM, UT, AL and VA.
Wisconsin gradually turned red in the last 20 years. Scott Walker has changed and fixed Wisconsin. The Midwest is getting redder and redder.
Most of the Virginia area is red, but the high population density of northern Virginia that borders DC is pure Democrat blue. That is why Trump was leading in Virginia for awhile, until the north end vote came in.
PS:
His strong field of opponents included former or current governors of the 2nd (TX), 3rd (FL), 4th (NY) and 7th (OH) largest states and a host of US senators from states much more populous than VT, such as TX and FL.
Governors
Bush, Christie, Gilmore, Huckabee, Jindal, Kasich, Pataki, Perry, Walker
Senators
Cruz, Graham, Paul, Rubio, Santorum
Private Sector
Carson, Fiorina, Trump
On top of that… Jeb Bush had raised well-over $100 million before the campaign even got started. Bush might have been able to carry VA, CO and NV… But I don’t think he could have won PA, WI and MI… And OH would have been a toss-up instead 10-pt GOP win.
Bush might have had a shot at NH, too, but for all those college kids from MA. IMO the fact that Trump trounced Hillary in OH suggests that Bush might have been able to eke out a victory there, too, especially if ran with RINO Kasich. Prescott Bush was born in Columbus.
For once, she was just being honest.
Clinton clearly showed that she had fallen victim of the green maffia. Such people do not belong in the White House. Fossil fuels cannot be missed before 2100 and to do so much research is needed.
The ironic part is that this is a Clinton being honest.
Honest for a book fee of course. Each new book deal has to have an edgy twist to it. In this case it’s a little bit of honesty splashed around. A lot of Clinton supporters reside at the nursing home now or at the cemetery. They just don’t show up for automatic support the way they used to.
In her case, she hardly drew any crowds. The Dems would had better luck with Bernie. Unfortunately the DNC along with Clinton prevented that from happening.
Hah! Honesty for shock value! Unbelievable level of hypocrisy.
Being dead has never been much of an impediment to Democrat voters.
That random act of honesty probably made her go into withdrawal.
That’s the problem when your real self is so despicable and you reveal too much.
Constant conniving is necessary to fool people.
Look at the DNC emails. Nice people huh?
Like Wasserman Schultz?
Not a mistake but the real intent and not just isolated. Glad we heard about it before the election. Everybody seemed to brush a similar comment by then candidate Obama 9 years before when were were told to expect higher and higher energy costs from his policies and nobody seemed to care…
No, the Russians made her say those words in Ohio by slipping in a faked script for her to read at the last minute. sarc
Give her some credit. She seems to be taking the blame for this one. Question is, was she reading prepared remarks or was she speaking her own mind?
It was an Obama overreach script that she foolishly used in campaign mode without the executive powers already in hand. Only a rube would give a speech from California in Ohio. You’re supposed to feed the green crap out west and union benefit plays in Ohio and social security fear mongering in Florida.
“Give her some credit. She seems to be taking the blame for this one.”
Should one be given credit for “taking the blame on this one” when the error she claims to have made was to tell the truth?
“was she speaking her own mind?”
Objection; counsel is assuming facts not in evidence.
Nonsense! She sees it as a tactical error. She still can’t or won’t admit that it was economically and ethically wrong, wrong, wrong!
Joel: Hill didn’t get as far as she got speaking her own mind, starting with “I do”. She never “speaks her own mind”, or it would sound like this- “Do as I say, ’cause I’m way smarter than you, and you, and you…” as she pointed to each person in the room, one by one. It would not be true, but it would be an honest thought for her. I’ll give her this much, she has lied so often and so deeply, she may no longer have the capacity to know her own mind.
I recall that she also said to coal miners in West Virginia “..don’t worry, we’ll take care of you.” It may have been an ad lib, but from my experience with coal miners, they don’t want taken care of. They want to work, and will do a dangerous job to support their families.
“Don’t worry”, hissed the snake.
Yes, she may have also said “we’ll take care of you” to James McDougal, Mary Mahoney and Vince Foster
The hands that build rarely have their hands out.
She seems to have forgotten about saying she was going to raise taxes on the middle class and then lumping everyone who disagreed with her into a basket of deplorables.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idrgiAEk2Vs
Shhhh, already! Please just let them keep saying these things openly, OK?
Yes, you would think leaking rational comments in a post battle analysis would tip their hand. But then there is a repeating pattern of arrogance and stupidity that bubbles up with each campaign from her Party. Trump just being there will trigger it all again. It’s a personality flaw that repeats on a national scale.
Consider the numbers of red-state fine, upstanding men who watch the Miss America pageant. Those leading “questions” trapping contestants into Trump-bashing just alienated about 98% of them. Way to go, MSM . . .
She wasn’t joking, and the only thing she regrets is actually telling the truth about something for once in her life.
“joking” !! ??
Perhaps she’ll admit that she was also “joking” about running for president.
/snark
Is this book being written in real time to keep it edgy? A release in e-book format only would facilitate that approach. But then with this crew, they could be releasing multiple versions for different audiences.
Joking? That is a total lie. She wanted to kill coal. Period.
She didn’t give a rats ass about coal or anything else. It’s what she believed her voter base wanted. She has no moral base only ambition. A lying scheming old hag that smells of sulfur and old lady.
Well, she is wrong about that. It was her second biggest mistake. The biggest mistake was calling half of Trump supporters a basket of deplorables. That insulted far more people who ultimately embraced the phrase as a badge of honor.
Trump is a president of the working class. Not smooth, not a skilled liar, not a gentleman.
What she means is it was a POLITICAL mistake to make the statement.
“Lying Crooked Hillary”….tell the truth often enough, people start to believe it!
That was the first time in her life! Let’s not get carried away!
It’s so typical of the liberal leftist elite. It’s not just Clinton.
I wonder how long it will be before it becomes clear to the MSM that she didn’t (and still doesn’t) have the physical stamina to be President?
Exactly 1 year ago, they completely tried to hide her 9-11 collapse in NYC under very mild conditions and a cream puff campaign schedule. It hadn’t been for that single onlooker cell phone video, she probably could have gotten away with it.
If you want to see our future just look to China. Xi and Brown are just like that.
Yes, she regrets “saying” it. She would rather just spring it on you in the dead of night on Christmas eve.
The amazing thing, is that she still think it’s all about her and there must be nothing else on anyone else’s mind.
Classic example of making up your own reality and then living by it.
and yet the coal power plants and coal mines are going to go out of business in the USA (several coal power plants announced for close since Trump got in, no new ones planned).
and the coal industry itself laid off thousands when it went over to mountaintop removal.
Twas Fracking driving down the price of Naturan Gas that caused most of the coal mine closings. Fracked Gas is far cheaper than Coal for electricity production
Projected LCOE in the U.S. by 2022 (as of 2016) $/MWh
Coal is running between $128.9 and $196.3 $/MWh
Gas is running between $51.6 and $129.8 $/MWh depending on the type of power facility and ammount of CCS
Plant Type Min Capacity Weighted Average Max
Coal with 30% carbon sequestration 128.9 NB 196.3
Coal with 90% carbon sequestration 102.7 NB 142.5
Natural Gas-fired Conventional Combined Cycle 52.4 58.6 83.2
Natural Gas-fired Advanced Combined Cycle 51.6 53.8 81.7
Natural Gas-fired Advanced CC with CCS 63.1 NB 90.4
Natural Gas-fired Conventional Combustion Turbine 98.8 100.7 148.3
Natural Gas-fired Advanced Combustion Turbine 85.9 87.1 129.8
In Griff’s mind, any trend that he likes, will continue indefinitely.
Much like his claim earlier this year that low ice levels in the winter proved that this summer would shatter all records for low ice levels.
Low nat gas prices made coal unprofitable for awhile. Gas prices have since risen to the point where coal is competitive again.
If a coal company goes out of business people blame the company. But if a politician proclaims their plan to destroy the coal industry, people blame the politicians.
Pennsylvania has been a huge coal producing state, with an interesting (and rather dramatic) history behind their anthracite industry. Maybe if Blue Coal was still a thing, Hillary and her acolytes would be conflicted and confused.
Heh, I used to have a piece of Blue Coal.
It may have cost her Pennsylvania, but even if she had won there, it would not have been enough. She lost for more reasons than this one.
“CLINTON BLAMES COMEY, RUSSIA, WIKILEAKS, FACEBOOK, FAKE NEWS, VOTER ID LAWS, SEXISM, AND MISOGYNY FOR LOSING”
https://news.grabien.com/story-two-minutes-clinton-blames-comey-russia-wikileaks-facebook-v
Well, that’s more like it 😉
I thought she lost because she was an utterly false human being who entrained behind likeable Bill who is a better liar and then pre-manipulated the hierarchy of the Democratic Party to steal the nomination before sticking her humourless personality out into the public eye to try to scoot through the campaign without revealing her true self. And being recognized for what she is.
+10
You could be a political consultant with this except for the fact this is common sense interpretation and not higher order spin science packaged and sold as expertise.
Obama made a similar threat, yet he got elected. I guess she figured she could too.
True.
I think a factor is that, in Trump, the voters had a Republican candidate who wasn’t just another “the same old same old”. Unlike Romney and other past candidates, Trump wasn’t an “Obama-lite”.
“Hillary Clinton wrote that her biggest regret from the the campaign trail was saying that she would put coal miners out of business.”
Worth to repeat what others have said: she does not regret **thinking** to put coal miners out of busines, she only regrets **saying** it. In clear, she only regrets for saying what she really thinks.
What a despicable human.
What Hillary actually regrets is that “killing coal” was a public position not a private position.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/2016-presidential-debate-hillary-clinton-abraham-lincoln-229474
“Democrats Have the Green Party Blues: The party’s environmental extremism puts it at odds with working people whose aspiration is prosperity.” by George Melloan on 6 Sept 2017
https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-have-the-green-party-blues-1504735290
* * *
“… recent history reveals something else that may help explain the Democratic Party’s problems. Whereas it became the party of labor in the late 1930s and then snatched the civil-rights banner out of Republican hands in the 1960s, of late it has veered in a direction that does not particularly suit the interests of either working people or people of color with ambitions to climb the economic ladder. It has become, in essence, America’s Green Party, eclipsing the tiny party that bears that name.
“Underlying the Green philosophy is a distrust of economic growth. … They are a modern manifestation of a back-to-nature movement, feeding on the guilt and anxiety that accompany scientific advance.
* * *
“Under Green influence, Democratic lawmakers, when they controlled Congress, designated large tracts of the American West as new “wilderness areas.” They fostered the Endangered Species Act, which has been an effective barrier to industrial or agricultural development in more than a few states, often on specious claims of endangerment. They vastly expanded the amount of private property officially designated as “wetlands,” thus restricting its use. …
“And of course the Democrats, with Al Gore as their Joan of Arc, took up arms against fossil fuels with the fantastic claim that burning them endangers the planet. If that isn’t a call for a return to the dark ages—literally—what is? …
* * *
“The Democrats still claim to be the party of labor, but their attack on the energy sources that keep the economy running can hardly be described as pro-worker. …
“… to many Americans it looked like the Greens were disdainful of the aspirations of working people to live the good life …
“If the Democrats want to make a comeback, they should think about purging their ranks of these zealots. …”
Yep. Just a matter of time before they realise their mistake, or disappear into the dustbin of history.
We hope.
Virginia Postrel, when she was the editor of Reason Magazine, once wrote that when they were Marxists, they at least loved some human beings.
I support President Trump, but look at the trouble Trump has had with his own party, with issues which are popular with voters but unpopular with the establishment. I don’t think it would hurt to have a re-vitalised Democrat party snapping at the heels of the establishment Republicans, reminding them whose interests they are supposed to represent. It would be a shame if some of the squishier Republicans started feeling complacent about lying to their supporters.
When was there ever a purge in the big tent party? They just turn up or turn down the dial for volume. They also forgot to manipulate the dial differently for geography.
Today’s politicians are incompetent at basic maths and high school science. Sadly, she’s not alone in falling for the snake oil of green lobby. Over in Germany an entire country fell for the con. Anyone who takes renewable energy too seriously needs to read Sir David MacKay’s book Renewable Energy without the Hot Air
Hillary pandered to bag men like Steyer and the grant seeking “renewable ” con men . BIG boo boo .
It confirmed to everyone how out of touch the liberals were and how they had walked away from the people they claimed to represent .
Wake up Democrats the Greens will never love you and their Black masked Anarchist friends are
your new pals .
POTUS Clinton was anti-coal, anti-nuclear, and anti-exploring for natural gas. He was also inept developing renewable energy. Senator Clinton followed in his footsteps so I am not sure who wore the pants in the family so to speak.
POTUS Bush was pro-all of the above. This comes from his experience in Texas.
If the political cost of building new fossil and nuke power plants we need is a few wind turbines, I do not have a problem with that.
On a personal level, after Clinton was elected I was looking for a new job. After Bush was elected I got to finish my career being payed to do what I loved, new reactors.
Between Senator Clinton and the idiot Sanders, there was no difference except in the degree to which they think renewable can replace fossil and nukes.
Gad, disingenuousness Is a virtue with this woman. She realized her mistake was in not lying to the people of Pennsylvania and Ohio. She writes that down to remember for a hopeless next time. Her mistake is thinking people are stupid. The whole Dem party should be hunkered in introspection and trying to really figure out “what happened” but having it staring them in the face and not knowing shows that a large part of their minds are incapable of going there.
http://starecat.com/content/wp-content/uploads/evil-has-a-dress-code-stalin-kim-jong-un-hillary-clinton-long-grey-coat.jpg
Don’t buy the book and don’t let your SEIU union boss buy truckloads of the book.
Clinton regrets her comments because it contributed to her not becoming POTUS not because of the stress and worry they might have caused those whose livelihoods depend on coal. Tells you all you need to know about this awful piece of work.
Clinton regrets her comments….Ya think? Hers was the most inept campaign I can remember (and I’ve seen plenty!!).
+1
Good summary, but that does not sell millions of book copies.
In her next book she will suggest that she is in fact not a cattle futures expert like the MSM suggested in her gender defense, or whatever rationale that reporter bias was based on.