I missed these ads released earlier in the week, but with Ohio and Virginia in play as clutch swing states, ads like these could have some real power in hitting home with those states’ residents. In Ohio especially, people are watching real, productive jobs go by the wayside in real time, thanks to the regulatory noblesse oblige of the Obama administration in directing us lesser coal-consumers towards more acceptable, “sustainable” energy forms.

Funny how one of the biggest populist features of the Obama campaign has been showcasing Mitt Romney as a dreaded, greedy ‘factory closer,’ when Mitt Romney’s entire career was spent mastering the creative destruction process that necessitates shutting down enterprises that are costly and uncompetitive, while investing in the ones that could lead to more wealth, lower prices, and more jobs for the economy at large. That is an entirely different endeavor from President Obama’s factory closures, which use regulation and fiat to box out industries that they just don’t like, because they feel like it — ‘necessarily skyrocketing’ energy prices for be damned.

President Obama’s war on coal is real. Don’t believe us? Come to Brilliant, Ohio or Clay, West Virginia and we’ll show you coal mines that were closed as a result of President Obama’s assault on hardworking Americans who work in the coal industry. Coal is a cheap, abundant, and reliable source of power. Almost 90% of Ohio’s power comes from coal and just across the Ohio River in West Virginia, over 95% of its power comes from coal. Needless to say, coal plays a vital role in not only powering the Buckeye and Mountain states, but coal generates nearly half of America’s electricity. So why would President Obama want to destroy such a vital part of America’s economy? …

Since taking office, President Obama and his extreme EPA have issued new rules and regulations that are crippling the coal industry. In the weeks following President Obama’s inauguration, his administration was already in the process of rewriting the Stream Buffer Zone Rule – a rule that took 5 years to codify under the previous administration. President Obama’s rewrite of this one rule would cost tens of thousands of direct and indirect coal jobs.