Joe upset but McCain won't let go
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| Sun, 10-19-2008 - 3:02pm |
Today in USA Today:
(((NEW YORK (AP) — "Joe the Plumber" is lashing out at the media for analyzing his personal life since he suddenly became a focal point of the presidential race last week.
Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Holland, Ohio, told Mike Huckabee on his Fox News talk show Saturday that he is upset by the attention and has been unable to work with reporters crowded on his front lawn.
"The media's worried about whether I've paid my taxes, they're worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America," Wurzelbacher told the former Republican presidential hopeful on his show, Huckabee.)))
But McCain won't stop bringing his name up in his rally's - so how is that helping Joe? Or is he just using him for political gain? So who is using Joe - Obama or McCain?
In the Raliegh News and Observer:
(((In Concord, McCain delivered a 30-minute speech interrupted by chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A!" and a roar at every mention of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. He pledged to rein in spending, explore new energy sources and help troubled homeowners by buying up bad mortgages.
He invoked Joe the Plumber nearly a dozen times.
Wurzelbacher, an aspiring small-business owner, had asked Obama on a campaign stop this month whether his tax plan would hurt him. Obama gave a detailed explanation of his proposal and said by giving tax breaks to more people, it would help small business.
"Right now, everybody's so pinched ... ," Obama told him. "And I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
McCain has pounced. His campaign passed out posters that read, "I'm Joe the Plumber" and "Let Joe keep his dough."

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When did Obama misrepresent what he said ?
I think some posters might have interpreted it that way, but Obama just answered his question.
I suppose now it's Obama's fault that bloggers misunderstood what JTP said.
I think they are just listening through the filter of "John" - you know the filter that rewrites events to suit his needs. The 'do as I say not as I do' filter.
Where did I say that Joe said he made 250,000? He said the business could make that. Joe asked a hypothetical question, but he actually misrepresented himself.
No sorry, we are listening to what the man actually said.
Yes, I watched the video. Rhetorically asking the question "How many plumbers do you know that make $250,000 a year ?" is not a slam. The question came after he said that McCain would have us believe it's a plumber he's fighting for.
He was just trying to illustrate the point, that his tax plan will benefit the 95% of the population that make LESS than 250,000 a year. Considering that only 5% of Americans make over that amount, I doubt that very few of that 5% are plumbers, or teachers, or nurses, etc.
MCCain went on and on about "Joe the plumber" as if he represented some mythical everyman. He did not refer to him as "Joe the aspiring entepreneur on the verge of buying a quarter of a million dollar business".
Anyway, I'm glad everyone is off this kick of Obama's HALF sentence of "a plumber is who he is fighting for". I guess now that THAT hoax has been exposed the McCain supporters have to make asking a rhetorical question about how many plumbers make over $250,000 into some sort of imaginary slam. It isn't, but I guess when you have nothing of substance to say about your candidate, you have to imagine things about your opponent.
Sorry but Joe is indeed a plumber.
You've never gotten this, have you? It's never been about Joe the Plumber specifically. McCain used Joe Wurzelbacher to push a meme of "ordinary Americans vs. 'spread the wealth' socialism," and it's backfired, both on McCain and on Mr. Wurzelbacher himself. McCain might not have been able to predict the former, but he undoubtedly knew that the latter would happen...and he let it happen anyway, without giving Wurzelbacher so much as a heads up - either that he was intending to use him as a centerpiece theme of his final debate performance, or about the avalanche of attention that would come his way as a result of it, especially if he chose to invite it into his yard and his living room.
Neither the eeevul librul media nor the Obama campaign is responsible for "destroying" Wurzelbacher's life - to the extent that it has been "destroyed," if any. Mr. Wurzelbacher invited and sought out the media after gaining notoriety due to McCain's actions: he's offered his thoughts on everything from Social Security to the advisability (in hindsight) of having gone into Iraq. Wurzelbacher is no mere victim. What the press has done is - as they SHOULD - examine a new campaign meme to see if it holds water, just like they've done with other ones, from the Bill Ayers connection to troopergate. This is little more than yet another instance of the McCain campaign - or possibly John McCain himself - shooting from the hip and neglecting to see if their off-the-cuff idea of "hey, what about this guy that Obama said the words 'spread the wealth around' to? Can we make him a theme for regular guys vs. arugula eaters," actually would hold up under scrutiny. And, as it often turns out when you either don't fully think through the consequences of your actions, or don't investigate the veracity of claims made by someone else, McCain's hoped-for theme regarding Mr. Wurzelbacher's story did NOT hold up to much scrutiny. Wurzelbacher is not a licensed plumber, he's nowhere near close to being able to purchase his boss's business (ambition, while a nice thing, isn't the same as actual ABILITY to do any given thing; I can have AMBITION to buy a Lamborghini, but it certainly doesn't mean I've got anywhere near the money to be able to do so), and that business doesn't make anywhere near the $250-280K that Wurzelbacher - unprompted - told Obama in order to make his assertion of "you'll raise my taxes if I do this." Instead, it makes more like $100K. And Wurzelbacher himself makes more like $40K/yr. Neither of which is shabby or bad or wrong....but what it DOES mean is that Wurzelbacher - AND his boss - under Obama's proposed tax plan, would BOTH be receiving a tax CUT, pretty clearly.
Which, of course, is why the whole "Joe the Plumber" thing has fallen flat on its face: because Wurzelbacher was lying to Obama when he said he was "getting ready" to buy his boss' business (unless by "getting ready," Joe meant "dreaming about it some day in the far-off future"), and either also lied about the income the business pulled down in an average year, or was wildly misinformed about that figure himself. And it's ONLY if you don't notice that Wurzelbacher's claims were a) false, significantly, and b) likely LIES to begin with, designed to play "gotcha" with Obama, that his mythical "you'll raise my taxes!!" claim even starts approaching being believable.
Which, in turn, of course, is why both the McCain campaign and the larger Wingnut Wurlitzer™ have tried to shift the debate away from those inconvenient facts and onto a ginned-up notion that "the media's persecuting Wurzelbacher," and similar nonsense.
Fortunately, most people can see the facts - thanks to the investigative work done by the media - for themselves, and they're not believing the spin about ol' Joe the hardworking, unlicensed, tax-evadin' plumber.
Hell, for that matter, if saying Joe is making $250k is an outrage-worthy statement, then I'm sure the GoOPers are just INCENSED at ol' Johnny Mac, who said (to the camera) in last Wednesday's debate, "Joe, you're RICH, congratulations...."
Apparently not, of course.
Facts are stupid things, aren't they? ;o)
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