By Britt Nelson

Trump buried Cruz in the Indiana Primary on Tuesday night while Sanders scored an upset victory over the former U.S. Secretary of State.

Democrat Hillary Clinton’s recent comments about shutting down the coal industry in America replayed this week on national TV from West Virginia – a former coal country king — apparently resonated with close-by Indiana voters giving Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders a most important win. Apparently, a fair number of voters turned on Clinton in the final moments before the Indiana vote because she had been leading in the Indiana polls by 5 to 10 points.

The Clinton campaign on Wednesday morning, on network and cable TV news, downplayed Sanders’ win by saying Clinton’s delegate lead cannot be surpassed, a statement that Sanders disputes. To date, Clinton has 1,682 pledged delegates plus 520 super delegates for a total of 2,202 delegates. Sanders has 1,361 pledged delegates, plus 39 super delegates for a total of 1,400 delegates. Some 2,382 delegates are needed to win the Democratic nomination for president.

Sanders claims he can persuade many of Clinton’s super delegates to join his political revolution and deny Clinton the nomination. Super delegates are not pledged to vote for a particular candidate and are free to vote for whom they choose. Time will tell.

This Tuesday, May 10, is the West Virginia Republican and Democratic Primary and Sanders is expected to win easily over Clinton and New York billionaire Donald Trump is expected to carry the coal-rich state as well, according to polls conducted by Public Policy Polling.

On Monday, Clinton attempted to back track the coal comments looking for some wiggle room saying it was a “misstatement,” but her words made during a CNN Town Hall meeting in Ohio back in March were clear, concise and not taken out of context as she claims. Clinton said that as President, and due to environmental concerns, she would “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” These words were being played in Indiana – over and over – and beyond on CNN, Fox News, NBC, CBS, ABC and BBC in England.

On Monday, while in Indiana, an unemployed coal miner confronted Clinton face-to-face about her obvious flip-flop while trying to win the Indiana Primary and next week’s West Virginia Primary. Below are her comments made in classic — deny everything, admit to nothing, maintain plausible deniability at all times — political double-talk that Clinton is known for.

“I don’t know how to explain it other than what I said was totally out of context from what I meant because I have been talking about helping Coal Country for a very long time and I did put out a plan last summer,” Clinton responded. “It was a misstatement because what I was saying is that the way things are going now we are going to continue to lose jobs … What I said was that is going to happen unless we take action to try to help and prevent it.”

“I don’t mind anybody being upset or angry. People have the perfect right to feel that way,” Clinton told the man. “I do feel a bit sad and sorry that I gave folks the reason or the excuse to be so upset with me because that is not what I intended at all.”

Baloney! These words did not sit well with voters and they will haunt Clinton and certainly will be used by the Trump campaign in future negative TV campaign ads because her statements are fresh and not from years ago. In fact, Trump, in his Indiana victory speech Tuesday night, mentioned Clinton’s coal comments.

The coal industry can and should continue to play a long-term role in America’s goal of energy independence from foreign sources. The science of clean-burning coal has come a long way due to tightening federal environmental regulations over this industry.

Meanwhile, following Ted Cruz’s Indiana Primary defeat, the Texas senator conceded his loss and withdrew from the presidential Republican race saying, “The voters chose another path.”

Trump’s Indiana win over Cruz puts Trump within striking distance of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination for President, scaring the hell out of establishment politicians on both sides who are now finding the will of the people hard to ignore.

Trump now is the undisputed ‘presumptive’ Republican presidential nominee. Trump has 1,047 delegates with only 190 delegates to go before reaching the magic number.

Republican candidate Ohio Gov. John Kasich, as of Wednesday morning remained relatively quiet about Trump’s win and Cruz’s departure. Kasich came in a distant third in the Indiana Primary; media reports later hinted that he would officially announce his intention to drop out on Wednesday afternoon, thereby leaving Trump unopposed in the primary.

Kasich had been campaigning out west in New Mexico attempting to gain support to further erode Trump’s delegate lead, but his prospect of doing so was vastly diminished. Kasich accumulated just 153 delegates before deciding to suspend his candidacy.

Sanders admits his path to the Democratic nomination for president is a “high road to climb” but Clinton should have won the Indiana Primary, but she did not. She shot herself in the foot with those coal comments that will be replayed over and over again reverberating among Republican, Democratic and Independent voters.

Trump says now he can focus solely on Clinton and she can zero in on Trump, but Sanders is still in this presidential race to the end and in this volatile year anything can and will happen. There will be more surprises.\

About the author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.
Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.