May 5, 2016 - The loose lips that sink ships, as in a memorable World War II cautionary slogan, can sink a careless candidate, too. West Virginia was a reliable blue state in 1999 when Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore were preparing for what would become an epic battle for the White House. West Virginia looked safe for the Democratic nominee; the state had not voted for a Republican in 36 years.

But Al Gore, though a Tennessean who should have known better, forgot what was most important to West Virginians — guns and coal. George W. Bush cast himself as a friend of both, and the Republicans won. But for that enormous goof, there would have been no Florida recount fight, because with West Virginia’s electoral votes Mr. Gore would have won.

With that election, West Virginia has become reliably red, and the state’s voters have elected Republican members of the House, a senator and a state legislature (which this year adopted a right to work law). None of these things would have happened had the Democrats and Mr. Gore recognized the importance to West Virginians of coal and the Second Amendment. Mr. Gore was leading a party becoming a band led by Ivy League elitists who imagined that old and unrequited party loyalties would keep Democratic candidates safe. He had to learn the hard way.

The war against coal and guns has continued almost unabated since then, with a brief truce enabling Democrats to elect a governor and a senator, and that ended with the election of Barack Obama and his disdain for voters whom he said “cling to God and guns.” The “clingers” got the message that they weren’t invited to the party, and in 2008 returned to the Republicans.

Hillary Clinton, who has stayed faithfully in President Obama’s wake, echoes his disdain for the Second Amendment, which is dear to the hearts of millions of Americans. She has promised that if elected she will appoint Supreme Court justices hostile to the constitutional right to bear arms, and she boasted earlier this year that in her administration “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” This played well in Manhattan, but not in the hills and hollows (or even the towns and cities) of West Virginia. Perhaps she was counting on short memories. She concedes now that it was “a misstatement” and says it should be forgiven and forgotten.

She campaigned the other day in West Virginia, accompanied by Sen. Joe Manchin, a former governor who has survived the red tide by preaching that he’s a Democrat but not like those Democrats in Washington, that he’s a friend of West Virginia, and so is Hillary.

One voter, a coal miner now out of a job, put it right to her with a question: “How can you say you’re going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs, and then come here and tell us how you’re going to be our friend?”

It was a good question for which the lady had no answer, good or otherwise. 

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton laughs during a campaign stop in Charleston, W.V., Tuesday, May 3, 2016