“Joe the Plumber” was mentioned a lot in last night’s final presidential debate—some news folks counted 21 times. Mostly by John McCain, who found in “Joe” a guy who actually represents America. And so McCain seemed to find—in that otherwise innocuous but now famous exchange between his rival and Joe, to prove that he knows what America is about. Main Street America saw that too, last night, vividly—even if the big-city liberal media elites in Washington and New York and Atlanta (and Toronto), who sneer at it today in all kinds of snooty articles, didn’t.
In contrast —and this was especially evident on some of those split-screen shots of the two candidates—Barack Obama could be seen arrogantly laughing or at least broadly smiling dismissively—off-puttingly to me—at McCain’s repeated references to Joe. That repeated reference, which spoke to idea that McCain actually “gets” America, and Obama’s obviously dismissive attitude about those references, was what for me formed the very referential core of the debate —and in fact maybe even the whole Presidential campaign.
I liked this tidbit from an article in the New York Post yesterday which reviewed the spontaneous exchange between the now famous “Joe the plumber” (who asked a simple question) and Barack Obama (who gave an excruciatingly long—but oops, very revealing—answer) during an Ohio campaign event.
WASHINGTON – You won’t find it in his campaign ads, but Barack Obama let slip his plans to become a modern-day Robin Hood in the White House, confiscating money from the rich to give to the poor.
[…]
Then, Obama explained his trickle-up theory of economics.
“My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
Critics said Obama let the cat out of the bag.
“It’s clear that his main goal is redistribution of wealth, not growth,” said Andy Roth with the anti-tax group Club for Growth. “He’s perfectly happy to destroy wealth as long as he can redistribute it.”
Obama has been meticulous, Roth said, to conceal the “socialistic” nature of his tax plans. “But every once in a while, he lets it slip,” he said.
Republican candidate John McCain yesterday charged that Obama’s comment was telling.
“This explains how Senator Obama can promise an income-tax cut for millions who aren’t even paying income taxes right now,” he said in Pennsylvania.
After the exchange,
Joe made additional comments in this excellent interview with Family Security Matters correspondent Pam Meister (this is just a part of it—read the whole thing—it’s good):
JOE WURZELBACHER: Initially, I started off asking him if he believed in the American Dream and he said yes, he does – and then I proceeded to ask him then why he’s penalizing me for trying to fulfill it. He asked, “what do you mean,” and I explained to him that I’m planning on purchasing this company – it’s not something I’m gonna purchase outright, it’s something I’m going to have to make payments on for years – but essentially I’m going to buy this company, and the profits generated by that could possibly put me in that tax bracket he’s talking about and that bothers me. It’s not like I would be rich; I would still just be a working plumber. I work hard for my money, and the fact that he thinks I make a little too much that he just wants to redistribute it to other people. Some of them might need it, but at the same time, it’s not their discretion to do it – it’s mine.
[…]
JW: As soon as he said it, he contradicted himself. He doesn’t want to “punish” me, but – when you use the word “but,” you pretty much negate everything you just said prior to that. So he does want to punish me, he does want to punish me for working harder to – you know, my big thing is the American Dream. I work hard. You know, I was poor; my mom raised me and my brother by herself for a very long time until my dad came along. So I know what it’s like to suffer. It’s not like I was born with a silver spoon. Usually it was a wooden spoon and it was on my butt. It was just a contradiction of terms, what he said: he doesn’t want to punish me but he wants to redistribute my wealth. And what I mean when I say my wealth, I mean the collective. Eventually – I mean, just to sound a little silly here, but you need rich people. I mean, who are you going to work for?
PAM MEISTER [Family Security Matters]: Do you fear this is the possibility of America turning more down the socialist road if Obama does become elected and if he is able to implement these policies?
JW: Very much so. You start giving people stuff, and then they start expecting it – and that scares me. A lot of people expect it now. They get upset when their check’s late, they get upset when they don’t get as many benefits as they used to, or when different government agencies are cut or spending is cut here and there for whatever reason – people get upset at that. And that’s because they’re used to getting it and they want more. I mean, everyone’s always gonna want more. People work the system left and right to get more out of welfare, to get more out of state assistance, federal assistance. And if government’s there for them, they’re gonna keep on trying to manipulate it to get more out of it. You got people that come along and say, “Hey, I wanna help you people,” I mean, they’re all ears! They’re like, “Hey, you can help me more, I don’t have to work as hard, I don’t have to do as much, and you’re gonna give me this? Man, that’s great, you’re a good guy.”
So yeah, it goes down the socialist – His healthcare plan scares me. You know, I don’t like people going without healthcare, but it’s not my job to pay for everyone else’s healthcare. It’s hard enough paying for my own. I like the idea of deregulation as far as – nationally, you know, you only get insurance companies that can work in this state – if you deregulate that then you have more people competing and then the prices would go lower. It seems pretty simple to me. It probably isn’t that simple – but you flood the market with more products, usually they go down cheaper.
[…]
Obama was Mr. Smooth and Relaxed last night. McCain came off last night like a bit of a nervous old scatterbrain, and didn’t actually land the punches he should have. But McCain at least proved he gets it. Obama proved he’s an excellent snake-oil salesman.
UPDATE:
FoxNews.com fronts their page this morning with photo and caption echoing my sentiments exactly.
Also see:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/joe-the-plumber.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081016/ap_on_el_pr/joe_the_plumber
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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