Does Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes really want to f*** the all-important coal industry in Kentucky?
One of the campaign insiders, captured on a hidden camera video, apparently claims that “she’s gonna f*** ’em” as soon as she gets elected.
In an earlier video, campaign staffers seem to be acknowledging that Grimes is prevaricating about backing the coal industry, and once she gets safely elected, she will instead try to “wipe out” the coal industry. Another campaign worker admits that politics is “a lying game.”
Being identified as against coal is evidently a non-starter in Kentucky, particularly given that regulations proposed by the Obama administration would shut down most coal-fired power plants. The coal industry provides lots of jobs in Kentucky and, as such, is an important component of the state’s economy.
Watch the videos below and draw your own conclusions.
Grimes, a Democrat who portrays herself as a strong pro-coal candidate who supports the state’s energy industry even while accepting campaign contributions from environmental activists, is running for U.S. Senate in Kentucky against incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell .
In TV ads and public appearances, Grimes has tried to put distance between herself and President Obama given his unpopularity in Kentucky. Apart from a few isolated instances, however, Democrats in the Senate march in lockstep with the agenda of Obama and Harry Reid.
The Washington Free Beacon noted that “[coal industry] support is crucial in coal-heavy Kentucky, and Grimes has worked to present herself as a strong proponent of the industry.” Most, but not all, polls show McConnell leading Grimes in a state that Mitt Romney easily won in 2012.
The footage in question was captured by the Project Veritas offshoot, Project Veritas Action, headed by muckraking journalist James O’Keefe.
In general, undercover videos were a traditional part of a reporter’s toolbox, at least until perhaps the 2008 presidential election, at which time the national mainstream media seemed to abandon investigative journalism.
Notwithstanding that the controversial O’Keefe has plenty of detractors for his particular brand of journalism, the Project Veritas team has exposed — primarily through undercover videos — possible election law violations by the Wendy Davis for governor campaign, the corrupt ACORN organization, other instances of voter fraud , apparent chicanery in the Obamacare navigator program , and revealed that some outspoken anti-gun journalists declined to post gun-free zone signs outside their own homes. His group also exposed potential abuses in the so-called Obamaphone program .
More recently, an O’Keefe video showed how someone wearing an Osama bin Laden mask could walk across the southern border undetected, and also, how a man wearing an ISIS uniform could cross by boat from Canada to the U.S. without being stopped.
Ironically perhaps, the Grimes campaign recently released a commercial scolding Mitch McConnell for being insufficiently pro-coal. Even the Washington Post fact-checker awarded that ad four Pinnochios.
The Grimes campaign has not yet commented about the latest O’Keefe/Project Veritas videos.
Reacting to the undercover videos, Townhall.com opines that “While it’s certainly smart campaigning for a candidate to say they support an issue that’s vital to the economy of the state, Kentuckians deserve an honest candidate who has their best interests at heart.”
Do you think that for political expediency, Alison Lundergan Grimes is fibbing about her support for “Big Coal”?
[top image credit: Patrick Delahanty ]