I don’t share a political affiliation or views with Bo Copley, but I left his documentary feeling that he’s someone who I could see trusting and listening to.
At a town hall in Ohio, Hillary Clinton spoke of replacing fossil-fuel energy with renewable sources, saying that she wanted to create “economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country.” Yet in a major mistake, she seemingly finished by saying, “Because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
Of course, that’s where the quote stopped in the media, but she did continue to state, “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. Now we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don’t want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.”
Copley was invited to join a roundtable discussion with Clinton, who was campaigning in West Virginia before the state’s presidential primary. He showed Hillary a photo of his three children and with raw emotion, he broke through the political spin cycles and reached the hearts of many across the country.
Now, two years later, he’s struggling to win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in his home state. Sure, he has peoples’ best interests at heart and so much emotion, but he lacks experience, a traditional campaign and most importantly, money. That’s because Bo has been unemployed for two years and is facing the taxes mounting from cashing in his 401K.
Again, Bo, I can relate to you.
A lifelong resident of Mingo County, WV — I’ve wrestled there — Copley worked in the coal industry for 11 years before the industry got rough. But even tougher was the campaign trail, where he was attacked for everything in his life, despite being the type of outsider that other candidates can only dream of being.
The trouble is, the state of West Virginia desperately wants coal to come back in a world where natural gas and other cleaner energy resources are more efficient and inexpensive. The past truly can’t return, but who can help those that depended on it? There are no easy answers — and while I like Bo, I don’t think he had any other than a great media appearance and the belief that God told him to run.
World Channel will screen this movie on October 19 at 4 PM PT and 9 PM PT and October 20 at 5 AM PT. It will also screen in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington, Houston, Boston, Atlanta, Seattle, Detroit, San Diego and many more markets. You can learn more on the official site.