Former President Bill Clinton spoke about helping miners with black lung, replacing lost coal jobs and expanding infrastructure and broadband Internet in a speech in Charleston Friday night that was filled with local themes.
In one of his first high-profile speeches since Hillary Clinton began her presidential campaign in the spring, Clinton barely mentioned his wife. He noted briefly that she did well in the West Virginia primary in 2008 and he praised her and her primary opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, for laying out specific policy agendas, in contrast to the Republicans, he said.
But he did not campaign for her.
"I'm not sure I'm very good at this anymore," Clinton said, at the beginning of a 45-minute speech that he did virtually without notes. "I'm kind of like an old horse that they keep in the stable.
"An election comes along, they give you some extra oats and brush you down, and take you out on the track and strike you on the rump, and see if you can get around just one more time."
Clinton spoke to about 1,500 people at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, the West Virginia Democratic Party's annual fundraiser at the Charleston Civic Center.
"Long before I ever came to West Virginia, I had a life that makes me hurt every time I see a story here, about dying towns and prescription drug epidemics and all the other challenges you face," Clinton said.
He talked about "people ripping off funds for health care and retirement." He talked about Patriot Coal, blaming the company for going back on its word to retired miners.
He talked about, when he was first out of law school, working to help miners get black lung benefits.
He said there was a man who used to work on his campaigns in Coal Hill, Arkansas. The man, Clinton said, wasn't drafted for World War II, and worked double shifts in the mines all through the war.
"By the time I met him, this big, massive man couldn't push his lawnmower 10 yards across his front lawn," Clinton said. "He couldn't walk across his front yard. And I finally got him his black lung benefits so he and his wife wouldn't have to die in abject poverty."
He praised Sen. Joe Manchin, among others, for introducing a bill this week to reform the black lung benefits reform program.
"That ought to pass," Clinton said. The bill has, to date, no support from the rest of the state's congressional delegation.
Clinton repeatedly praised the Reconnecting McDowell program, a collaborative effort to improve opportunity in impoverished McDowell County. More than two years ago, in her first major speech after stepping down as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton praised the same program.
Clinton talked about broadband Internet as a veritable springboard to economic opportunity.
"Smart people in every little nook and cranny would find a way to take advantage of it," he said.
Clinton was the last Democrat to win West Virginia in a presidential election, in 1996. Not a single speaker Friday night, Clinton included, mentioned the current Democratic president, although Clinton did credit "the administration in Washington" at one point.
Both Clinton and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin mentioned "the health care law," (but not by it's popular moniker Obamacare). Tomblin praised it for bringing health insurance, through Medicaid, to more than 169,000 West Virginians.
Clinton said it "needs some fixing.
"But the worst thing we could do is go back to the way it was," he said.
Clinton never mentioned the environmental measures that have made President Barack Obama so unpopular in West Virginia (and which Hillary Clinton broadly supports) but he did talk about the decline of coal jobs.
Coal employment in America peaked in 1920 and production peaked in 1950, Clinton said.
"I can't resolve all the coal issues," he said. "We know that at some pace or another there is a trend underway that probably cannot be reversed. Nobody has a right to claim anybody's life over it, to take the best years of their life away. No county in America should have a disability check as its main source of income."
Where are the windmill assembly factories and the solar plants, Clinton asked.
"We can't turn our back on mining communities," he said. "If we're going to go into the future, shouldn't we give preference to the places that have benefited us in the past?"
Clinton opened his speech by briefly touching on the recent shooting at a community college in Oregon.
"Those of us who grew up in hunting country," Clinton said, "most of us think it's kind of crazy that we don't do background checks."
A Manchin-led proposal to expand background checks failed after it was filibustered in the Senate in 2013. Manchin said on Friday that he had no plans to revive the bill.
While he spoke on a broad array of specific topics, Clinton said that, ultimately, there are only three things that really matter: Are people better off than when you started, do children have a brighter future and are we going forward together, leaving nobody behind.
"This is a job," he said about governing. "It is not about hot air, it's about real promise, real opportunity."
Manchin, who wasted no time endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, personally requested that Clinton speak at the annual fundraiser.
He introduced Clinton, calling him, with no apparent hyperbole, "the greatest president we've ever had."
Clinton said that he watched all five hours of the first two Republican presidential debates and realized, "I don't belong here. I'm not mad at anybody."
In a not so subtle broadside at the Republican candidates, and in particular their frontrunner Donald Trump, Clinton said "you should not be able to insult or resent your way all the way to the White House."
The approximately 135 tables on the Civic Center floor were sold out, at a cost of $1,200 a piece. There was also smattering of audience in the first level of arena stands. Those tickets were priced at $50.
The state party did not pay a fee for Clinton to speak, but did cover travel expenses for him and his staff. Those expenses are "not trivial," party Vice Chairman Chris Regan said, but were a fraction of what his normal speaking fee would be.
Reach David Gutman at david. gutman@wvgazette.com, 304-348-5119 or follow @davidlgutman on Twitter.