Returning to our ongoing tale of Bernie Sanders pushing Hillary Clinton ever further to the left, last night’s town hall meeting on CNN had yet another nugget for us. In order to establish her bona fides with the Democratic base, Secretary Clinton made sure to let everyone know that she was going to be replacing all of that nasty, dirty, fossil fuel energy which supplies more than two thirds of the juice on our grid with renewable resources. But that’s just standard fare for liberals and not enough to make you a true warrior of the Left. To really put the icing on the cake, the Democratic frontrunner decided to get a rise out of the highly supportive crowd with a promise to largely wipe out an industry which provides tens of thousands of jobs. (Mediaite)

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. Because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right Tim?

And we’re going to make it clear that we don’t want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.

Let’s go to the video, Skippy!

If I weren’t already laughing so hard I’d be agreeing with Alex Griswold (at the link above) who asked what Clinton could possibly have been thinking. This is a classic Washington, DC gaffe, where a smidgen of truth slips out at an inopportune moment. It’s particularly brilliant as a GOP advertisement this fall because from her own lips we hear her say that she’s not just going to put the mining companies out of business, but the miners themselves.

I wonder where such an advertisement might run? West Virginia went for Mitt Romney in 2012 by 25 points so she probably doesn’t need to worry too much about that, but Pennsylvania has a generations deep relationship to the coal industry. Obama carried the state last time, but only by five points. Less commonly discussed are Illinois and Virginia which are the 7th and 8th largest coal producers in the nation. Illinois may be a lost cause, but Obama only carried Virginia by four points.

It’s not as if conservatives didn’t already know this, and Hillary Clinton has promised to carry on Barack Obama’s legacy. This includes his use of extra-legislative regulations through the EPA to make coal less and less profitable. But having the words coming out of Hillary’s own mouth on national television, ready to be played in a loop from August until November, is a birthday present to the eventual Republican nominee with a big old bow tied around it.