Lessons from Joe the Plumber
It was classic McCain--grab ahold of something floating by and run with it, no matter how little you know. In this case, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher--Joe the Plumber. Somehow, the McCain campaign discovered this exchange between Obama and the plumber a
nd decided to make it the cornerstone of last night's debate. Like a badly-conceived commercial, you forget why he was used as an example in the first place, don't you? (Hint: it had to do with Obama taxing the hard-workin' middle class, plumbers like Joe. Kevin points out the logical fallacy in this post, below.)
Last night's debate offered many metaphors for McCain's badly-conceived campaign, but you could do worse than choosing Joe. Predictably, the McCain camp didn't vet him. By the time he appeared on Good Morning America today (as I predicted by 6:10 pm during yesterday's debate--points in Punditology for that, Kari?), reporters had already dug into his background. Guess what? He's not the model spokesperson the campaign might have wished:
- He's not actually a licenced plumber or contractor--required by Toledo law.
- He has two outstanding liens.
- He's not an independent--he's a registered Republican.
- He thinks Social Security's "a joke."
- He thinks the idea that those earning $250,000 should pay 3% more in taxes is "a socialist view."
Oh, and after failing to understand Obama's clear, detailed response to his answer, he described Obama as having danced around like Sammy Davis, Jr. (I guess that is in line with the campaign's direction.) Running with Joe the Plumber's story without vetting him properly? The McCain campaign would never do that.
But the biggest inadvertent lesson is in Joe's voter registration status. When reporters first searched his name, they couldn't find it and early stories reported that he wasn't registered. But in fact, the state had just bungled his name:
“We have his named spelled W-O, instead of W-U,” Linda Howe, executive director of the Lucas County Board of Elections, said in a telephone interview. “Handwriting is sometimes hard to read. He has never corrected it in his registration card.”
So Joe is a legally registered Republican in the state of Ohio, but there's a mistake in the spelling of his name. The Republican Party has spent eight years trying to use mistakes like this to scrub people from the voter roles, and they're currently engaged in a massive effort to de-register hundreds of thousands of (mostly new) voters in swing states. Guess who those voters disproportionately favor?
If the GOP had its way, they would try to dump Joe as a case of "fraud." His registration puts the lie to the whole ACORN/voter fraud story--another example of a backfiring metaphor. I think the new line from the Obama campaign should be, "Why does John McCain want to stop Joe the Plumber from voting?"
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October 16, 2008 |
Jeff Alworth | Comments (52 so far)
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Posted by: Bill R. | Oct 16, 2008 2:06:10 PM
Just out, Rasmussen poll, Obama 54-McCain 41
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/oregon/election_2008_oregon_presidential_election
Not as big a gap as the SUSA poll, but a good one.
Posted by: genop | Oct 16, 2008 2:23:09 PM
A close election seems to bring out these ugly tactics and rewards trickery. We need to get tough and publicly prosecute those who would game our democracy. Some serious prison time is what I'm thinking. More to the point, Obama needs to build a substantial lead to counter the possibility of the Florida debacle. That's reason to dig deep in my dwindling pocket, despite positive poll numbers. We can't afford a close call this time.
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 16, 2008 2:27:30 PM
Ha ha! That's a great line, Jeff.
Posted by: rw | Oct 16, 2008 2:33:27 PM
Hey Genop: if your pockets is bare, wander over to "Let's Win..." and post some new lies debunked -- let the redoubtable owner that that thread help you out! :)...
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 16, 2008 2:37:24 PM
The McCain campaign will grasp at anything a this point - even making an unvetted voter the centerpiece of the final debate.
One of the cable news networks reported on emails received in several states instructing Democratic voters to vote for Obama before they vote the straight party ticket. This action would leave all down-ticket offices unvoted with some voting systems. This looks like an effort to keep other Republicans from going down the tubes with McCain and Palin.
Of course, no one who works for Republicans would run such a vote suppressing scheme, would they?
Posted by: rw | Oct 16, 2008 2:58:34 PM
Thomas, in the spirit of parity and inquiry - are there any reports (beyond the ACORN situation) of Democratic manipulations of this stripe?
I ask because the reportage has been heavy on reports from ALL battleground states of active and multifarous strategies actively worked and, in some cases, acknowledged, by GOP to use suppression as an integral part of their process.
I'd like to know if anything is leaking through viz Democrats too?
I'm not finding it, not even as test-balloons in the tabloids, a favored germination place...
As to ACORN - knowing the ability of entrenched governing entities to collude to build cases that DO appear substantive until years later too late... is it REALLY possible that ACORN F*ed up THAT big?
I do feel their leadership needs to be taken to task for lacking the ability to know the limits of their capacities. They have done a lot of damage, no matter whether the issues are as HUGE as GOP likes to say, or much smaller, and can be addressed.
This is just not ok.
Not by me.
And I'm the guy who first said, look under that rock three times for a lie and a trumped-up case against ACORN, yes, multistate. I've seen it done, fought in that war directly in another venue.
So - tell me, are you seeing anything on Dems in voter suppression?
Posted by: Kristin | Oct 16, 2008 3:00:54 PM
We need to have a huge, national effort to encouraging newly registered voters to CONFIRM that they indeed will be able to use their right to vote on Nov. 4....
Posted by: Jefffrane | Oct 16, 2008 3:08:05 PM
The GOP didn't even vet their VP candidate, why would they vet a shill?
Posted by: Stefan | Oct 16, 2008 3:25:01 PM
OT - Mary Sorteburg (Jeff Merkley's wife) is blog-chatting at DailyKos right now!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/16/15424/820/821/632772
Posted by: Ray Duray | Oct 16, 2008 3:33:07 PM
The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat:
The betters at Intrade give Obama Bid = 84, McCain't Bid = 15
The Irish are even more certain, they've already paid off the winning bet.
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 16, 2008 3:37:39 PM
rw,
Democrats beleive that if turnout is high, they are advantaged, so they are not likely to find vote supprression attractive. It could happen, of course, but I think Republicans or their supporters] are responsible more almost all such efforts.
Jefffrane,
Point taken.
Posted by: rw | Oct 16, 2008 3:52:36 PM
So, I hear you saying that other than ACORN's clear lack of gravitas in this critical turning point situation, there is no evidence of the suppression efforts that have been documented in battleground states in particular, and the nation as a whole; and that it is your philosphical "take" on it that all such activity is clearly GOP-instigated?
I agree from the kickstart here, but I'm checkin' on the bias here...
Posted by: Ray Duray | Oct 16, 2008 3:52:58 PM
Rebecca,
Re: "So - tell me, are you seeing anything on Dems in voter suppression?"
Huh? I've been following election fraud issues since the infamy of the 2000 election and I'm not sure what in the world you are referring to here.
As close as I can parse of what is going on the most vexing aspect of voter suppression that the Democratic Party is engaged in is their utter contempt for the fine work of Rep. John Conyers et al in investigating the outrageous voter supression efforts of former Ohio Sec. of State Ken Blackwell in the 2004 Kerry loss in that corrupted state. As you may recall, the pusillanimous Pelosi, the hypocritical Hoyer and the excretory Emanuel all engaged in egregious voter suppression after the fact when they refused to stand up for democracy and electoral integrity.
Further reading:
Press Cracks Up When Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) Claims 'We'd Never, Ever Engage in Voter Suppression'
Posted by: rw | Oct 16, 2008 3:57:45 PM
Ray: calm down. Sounds like you are going the wrong direction as to the motivations for my inquiry, into reactiveness. Have you not figured out that I engage conversationally when possible?
I am actually interested in the answer, Ray. A novelty, it's a question to check out the wholism of the landscape!
I'm a freekin' DEM, Ray! Hahahahah.
Worse yet, I MIGHT have asked that question to MAKE A POINT backwards! :).....
Anyway: Jefffrane - your point is taken on the surface as comradely swipes taken at a buffoonish adversary. However, good gawd! You'da thunk they'da learned!
One would think they WOULD vet the shill. And everything else too. They NEED to.
Deeply tragic blindness.
Posted by: naschkatzehusseint | Oct 16, 2008 3:58:09 PM
Jeff, I'm also reading that "Joe" is a close relative of Charles Keating's son-in-law.
Posted by: rw | Oct 16, 2008 4:26:04 PM
Ray, take this as a chuckle and a poke onna arm: were you channeling Nader there for a second? Oy!
Posted by: rw | Oct 16, 2008 4:26:04 PM
Ray, take this as a chuckle and a poke onna arm: were you channeling Nader there for a second? Oy!
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 16, 2008 4:49:05 PM
Jan,
The top income tax rate during the Eisenhower administration was 91%. At that time, the disparity between the richest and poorest was narrowing, unlike now. That seems about the correct Top rate to me.
Posted by: joel dan walls | Oct 16, 2008 5:00:46 PM
Eisenhower claimed to be a Republican, but has certainly been disowned by the modern Republican Party as a RINO.
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Oct 16, 2008 5:22:34 PM
Joe el fontanero in Spain
Posted by: Just another flat earther | Oct 16, 2008 6:05:35 PM
EAT THE RICH and then tax their estates at 50%!
Posted by: Jan | Oct 16, 2008 6:06:25 PM
"top income tax rate during the Eisenhower administration was 91%...That seems about the correct Top rate to me."
Why not make 100% ??
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 16, 2008 6:13:29 PM
Why not make 100% ??
We wouldn't want to blunt their drive to get ahead, would we? The 91% didn't do that, as the rich continued to invest all through the 1950's.
Posted by: jan | Oct 16, 2008 6:45:07 PM
"The 91% didn't do that, as the rich continued to invest all through the 1950's."
Actually it totally screwed up paying upper income people. You are ignoring the fact that most upper income people shifted their income to get capital gains instead of salary & wages.
I even remember a friend, in a good union nob, refusing overtime because he only made pennies per hour after the tax
Good way to help the economy.
Are you are just jealous of successful people?
Posted by: Yoma | Oct 16, 2008 7:00:51 PM
NPR reported this morning that "Joe" also owes $1,200 in back taxes.
Posted by: lw | Oct 16, 2008 7:12:05 PM
I've heard that Joe the Plumber is a 5th removed cousin of Obama.
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Oct 16, 2008 7:13:50 PM
Joe, le plombier - the most celebrated plumber in the universe. Maybe with all this international publicity McCain can make Joe his secretary of state.
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 16, 2008 7:25:12 PM
jan wrote:
Are you are just jealous of successful people?
Ha, ha, ha, it never fails that conservatives play the class-warfare card. No, Jan, I'm not jealous of successful people. I'm quite content with my economic situation, but I'm pissed as hell about the millions of Americans who never feel economically secure. I think it's shameful that such a wealthy nation should devalue it's people so.
I'm pissed as hell that our physical infrastructure is falling apart and that we are not investing in the infrastructure appropriate to the 21st century. I'm pissed as hell that millions of kids go to warn out, dangerous schools that lack needed resources. I'm pissed as hell that millions go without decent healthcare.
Shall I go on?
Posted by: RW | Oct 16, 2008 8:18:47 PM
I just erased a huge, emotional post.
I cannot tell you how much it matters to hear those of you who are well enough off, secure, stable, own homes, have great educations and family and all that ... stand up for and speak with passion for those of us of goodly intellect as well who will be dismissed because we are not materially stable as are you.
That you CHOOSE to look and to see, OPTING INTO opening hearts and minds to unimaginable realities.
I have CHOSEN my good politics. IN that horrible hardship after 2000, I was terrified I might never come back from bitterness and fear, disappointment in things I will not speak of in a blog where one wrong word can injure, rot, fester or pierce.
But I can tell you that I also choose. But because of my position and parts of my story, I might be dismissed as merely self-referential.
There are times we must recognize our power in the heirarchy and CHOOSE to make our voices and deeds speak for others.
Thank you for that fire in your belly. THank you for the kindness in your eyes. And thank you for caring enough to wrestle and argue and piss and to moan over the troubles of the day. You could certainly choose to do otherwise.
Dunno waht others feel. But I can tell you many's been the time I used my place in my own worlds to ensure access and opportunity, bulwark and learning for another. It's my job where I walk. It's my job.
So I'm grateful to occassionally hear a vaulting paen to the truth of the Other Classes.
Posted by: jan | Oct 16, 2008 8:21:27 PM
Since the rich already pays most of the income taxes in this country, taxing them more, even at 100% probably would not get the money you desire - you'll have to go where the big money is: the middle class (YOU)
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Oct 16, 2008 8:23:30 PM
I even remember a friend, in a good union nob, refusing overtime because he only made pennies per hour after the tax
Jan: I think you are another shill like Joe the plumber. I was involved for over 30 years with six unions and my colleagues grabbed all the overtime they could get. They were left with lots more than "pennies per hour." Why don't you give Joe a call and trade bullshit with him?
Posted by: RW | Oct 16, 2008 8:49:26 PM
Jan: stop talking about your "friends" and talk about yourself for a while. Get real. What's motivating you? Get real about that. See if you can get a harmonic flow instead of merely creating a disturbance.
And, by the way, salt that down with some references to some articles in respected or respectable sources, some evidence that you have done more than masturbate to Rush Limbaugh's windy rants. In other words: substantivize yourself.
Right now you look and feel like an idler who just happened by and is bored.
Posted by: darrelplant | Oct 16, 2008 9:05:09 PM
I even remember a friend, in a good union nob, refusing overtime because he only made pennies per hour after the tax
This claim doesn't even pass a basic smell test.
Back in 1964, when the top tax rate was 91%, it was only 91% on income over $400,000, which is far beyond what anyone in a "good union nob" made. Hell, it's beyond what all but a very few union jobs with wads of overtime would pay now. The median family income in 1964 was $6,600.
And $400K in 1964 dollars is about $2.66 million in 2007 dollars
Posted by: Unrepentant Liberal | Oct 16, 2008 9:35:08 PM
The middle class actually pay most of the taxes in this country. The rich seem to have no problem paying theirs and still seem to have plenty left over to conspicuously consume. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
But, schools and education cost money, our roads, bridges and infrastructure are crap and we could really use a better system of mass transit in this country. There is no magic fairy going to come to pay for and build these things no matter how many times we cut taxes.
There is, in short, no free lunch folks.
Oh, by the way according to reports that have surfaced, 'Joe the plumber' is a relative of Charles Keating. Hilarious.
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 16, 2008 9:53:47 PM
I'd settle for a top bracket of 50% along with the establishment of a graduated capital gains tax to capture some of that investment income that jan mentions.
Posted by: DanOregon | Oct 16, 2008 10:03:58 PM
Remind me NEVER to have a conversation with a presidential candidate - the way Joe the Plumber, Gold Star mothers and others have become fodder for the news media and the campaigns has been pretty sad.
Joe asked a legitimate question and has a right to his views, I'd hate to think what the national media would be saying about me if I was caught on tape expressing skepticism about a politician's plan.
And by the way, I have no problem with ignorant racists, unreptant terrorists or divisive pastors being called out.
Posted by: rw | Oct 17, 2008 8:41:39 AM
Is Jan a shill?
"Income tax proper".
That is not a lay term, if it is not a mistake.
Posted by: Jeff Alworth | Oct 17, 2008 9:20:24 AM
Folks like Jan have a legitimate postion--it's the same one Joe the plumber has. Essentially, taxes are bad, wealth is good, quit your whining. If you hold this view, any encroachment, be it from 36% to 39% in the top marginal rate, or 75% to 91% ... well, it's all bad. Since this view holds that progressive taxation is wrong as a principle, there's no way to appeal to them by arguing macroeconomics, externalities, or the societal costs of income disparity. Moral positions are insensitive to logic.
So here's what I say: suck it up. Your time is done. We've run the experiment wherein we entrust the rich with the country's wealth, and you screwed it up. In your greed and arrogance, you have brought devastation on the country. Our briges are collapsing as fast as our financial infrastructure and you have created an economy where we produce nothing--the final stage in the waning days of an empire. Go ahead and hold to your moral position of "I got mine, screw the rest." It's an honest position. But now you're going to have to share and I'm tired of hearing your whining.
Posted by: rural resident | Oct 17, 2008 9:26:24 AM
Tom Civiletti .... Adding Oregon's 9% tax rate to the 91% federal rate you mention above DOES make it a, let's see ... 100% marginal tax rate (minus the small effect of the $5600 federal tax subtraction on the Oregon return that would leave it at about 99.7%). I'm guessing that there would be some negative effect on productivity for people in this bracket.
Posted by: joel dan walls | Oct 17, 2008 9:44:38 AM
Go ahead and hold to your moral position of "I got mine, screw the rest." It's an honest position.
Precisely. When you cut away the rest of the rhetoric, this is the crux of both big-L Libertarianism and the GOP version thereof (which is sort of Libertarianism with an imperial army and navy).
Taxes are your membership dues to be part of society. Of course, if you don't want to be part of society, you can go join the rest of those rugged individualists in Alaska, livin' off the land, huntin' moose, and collectin' their annual checks from the State of Alaska, by gum. You betcha.
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 17, 2008 9:53:28 AM
rural resident,
A top federal bracket of 91% would require increased deductibility at the state level. But that's not your point, is it?
I was listening to tape of Joe the Plumber laying out his political beliefs for reporters. I noticed that his frame of reference never goes beyond himself. There is Joe. There is the government. There are other people. He has no concept of himself as part of a society. There is only the pseudo-patriotic disorder that sees everything done by the homeland as right and glorious.
This may be a consistent attribute of folks like Joe and jan: an infantilism that sees everything economic in terms of the ego and approaches the political as a fairytale. Should conservatism be considered a symptom of arrested psychological development?
Posted by: RW | Oct 17, 2008 9:53:42 AM
Rural, Jan, et. al: are you suggesting that the mega-wealthy will quit their lives and become habitues of the undergirdings of our bridges should they be asked to give more of their material wealth above an amount I know that I shall never see? That the trauma of such would so disrupt their abilities to be motivated they would cease to arise from their beds to make more money, every morning?
This is what it seems you might be saying, beneath the heavy armor of what is becoming increasingly opaque reasoning to me.
Posted by: RW | Oct 17, 2008 10:03:29 AM
"This may be a consistent attribute of folks like Joe and jan: an infantilism that sees everything economic in terms of the ego and approaches the political as a fairytale. Should conservatism be considered a symptom of arrested psychological development?"
Civiletti: I say yes, perhaps. I will not indulge in a personal aneCdote. But I'll tell you I have direct experience with the loss of one's good politics under the duress of survival.
These people seem to display a pathological and ingrained sense of survivalism. This is a fear-based economy of self. We all have it to one degree or another: but this is a social justice adjustment disorder indeed - continue working only to buffer Self, and do not face one's fear - that one may be forced to ask for help and receive it. From Others.
Posted by: rw | Oct 17, 2008 10:37:39 AM
... and actually, I misstated. The terror of scrambling for any gig, any project work, any manual labor you can win so as to get that last five bucks for the rent is actually the terror that if you MUST ask for help you will not receive it.
For those who have never faced true survival challenges and fought the good war to do your part and get it done, heh, well, the first terror for them is on the frontlines of ego. The humility / humiliation factors of even asking for help.
But behind this is another frontier: that you will not receive it - five bucks to make that last bit is literally how it gets. And there are people who live this way for years on end.
Man, I've seen good, honest, thrifty folks live their entire lives like this! And I was lucky not to be amongst the unwashed masses bogeyman of entitlements-minded impoverished [as the conservatives like to categorize those who finally cannot believe this is right and correct that they cannot get a breath to get a foot to get a hand to get themselves safe again] - I've been amongst those whose survival strategy was to ACCEPT this and deal with it to the end of their days.
Posted by: rural resident | Oct 17, 2008 10:46:45 AM
Tom ...
A top federal bracket of 91% would require increased deductibility at the state level. But that's not your point, is it?
My point was that 91 + 9 = 100, and that 100% is pretty much a confiscatory tax rate. I'm curious why you think that Oregon would increase the amount of the deduction for federal taxes on the state return. As I think the upcoming election will show, there isn't much interest on the part of Oregon citizens for increasing the $5600 current limit.
Rebecca Whetstine ... No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm not against reworking the tax system and increasing marginal tax rates. I even favor raising the lid on Social Security and Medicare deductions if it would give us single-payer national health care.
However, we shouldn't go crazy about increasing tax rates to ridiculous levels. We want people to keep working and producing. In order to do that, they need to be able to hold onto a reasonable amount of the compensation for the marginal labor product they offer to society. Would you really be interested in going to work in November and December of each year if you knew that the result of that effort wouldn't net you any additional pay? If so, you're unlike most of us.
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 17, 2008 10:59:56 AM
rural resident,
The current situation does not include a 91% top tax bracket, so that is not a reason for changing Oregon's rules for tax deductibility now.
Do you think there is much chance of returning to the 91% rate? I doubt it myself.
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Posted by: Bill R. | Oct 16, 2008 1:55:23 PM
Joe's not vetted. And his name isn't Joe.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/10/16/joe_not_vetted.html