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.
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.