Thursday, October 16, 2008

Joe the Plumber, meet Joe Six-Pack


12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, October 16, 2008

John McCain had a message for the average American facing the economic crisis: Say it ain't so, Joe.

Time and again Wednesday, the Republican invoked the example of Joe the Plumber as a way of saying to voters: I'm on your side.

"What you want to do to Joe the Plumber and millions more like him is have their taxes increased and not be able to realize the American dream of owning their own business," Mr. McCain said.

Mr. Obama disputed that, but whatever the details, Joe the Plumber had made an unexpected star turn in the third and final presidential debate.

"My old buddy, Joe the Plumber out there," Mr. McCain said, veering back to his economic Everyman later in the faceoff to make a point about Mr. Obama's health care plan.

So who is Joe the Plumber?

He's Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio man hoping to buy a plumbing business who told Mr. Obama a few days ago during a campaign stop that his tax cut plan wouldn't help him.

Mr. McCain made Joe the symbol of middle-class voters anxious over the unruly economy whom both candidates will need in November.

"The whole premise behind Senator Obama's plans are class warfare, let's spread the wealth around," Mr. McCain said.

Mr. Obama replied that he's on Joe's side by wanting to give most small businesses a tax break.

"What I want to do is to make sure that the plumber, the nurse, the firefighter, the teacher, the young entrepreneur who doesn't yet have money, I want to give them a tax break now," he said.

Trailing in the polls and forced to relocate dwindling campaign resources among a few swing states, Mr. McCain needed to score points on several political fronts Wednesday night.

One was to send a clear message that on the economy, he's on the side of average homeowners, people worried about their jobs, families concerned about paying the bills.

Enter Joe the Plumber.

Mr. McCain also needed to put some daylight between himself and the unpopular President Bush.

In a year when many voters say they want change, the Arizona senator's dilemma has been how to break with the president without angering the GOP base. Mr. Obama says a McCain presidency would amount to a third Bush term.

After his Democratic rival tried again to tie him to Bush policies, Mr. McCain served notice that when it comes to handling the economy, he's no George W. Bush.

"Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago," he said. "I'm going to give a new direction to this economy in this country."

It was, perhaps, the best scripted line of the night for Mr. McCain, whose to-do list also included seeding doubts about Mr. Obama.

Against the advice of some Republicans who feared it would only increase the GOP candidate's negatives, Mr. McCain also seized briefly on Mr. Obama's association with former 1960s radical William Ayers. But then, lumbering back to more favorable talking points, he returned to the economy and Joe the Plumber.

As for Joe, who joins Joe Six-Pack in the pantheon of this year's political notables, he told reporters that being mentioned a dozen times in the debate was "pretty surreal," though he hasn't settled on a presidential candidate.

wslater@dallasnews.com

1 comment:

Merrily Snider said...

Thanks for posting this Tim.