Desperate campaigns try desperate things. The writing was on the wall when before the end of the Democratic Convention in Denver, John McCain plucked the obscure Sarah Palin from far away Alaska. As reported here earlier, the McCain campaign had to know that they had to shake things up to have any chance at this election. Ducking and hiding the new VP candidate, McCain was able to pull into a virtual tie with Senator Obama for about two weeks. But reality struck when Palin finally began talking to the press and the world markets began to crash. The close race evaporated and Obama has now pulled out a lead of between seven and ten points.
Realizing that the Palin effect was going sour, the McCain camp began a series of bizarre efforts to turn the race around again. First, the Arizona Senator decided to "suspend" his campaign to help with the passage of the $700 billion bail-out plan. When he did not receive many kudos for that performance, the McCain leadership decided (and decided in a very public manner) that they were going to defeat Obama on his "weak personal character". Out came speeches and ads trying to connect Obama with former 1960's radical turned college educational professor, William Ayers. Sensing that this supposed relationship was not hurting Obama, McCain had Palin ratchet up the rhetoric at her rallies, decrying the Illinois Senator as a "terrorist" and "not one of us". Crowds picked up on this angry line of attack and soon some in the rabid crowds were calling for Obama's head.
With the third and final debate quickly coming upon them, someone in McCain's camp came across the video of Obama talking to a bald headed, tough looking white guy from Toledo. The single dad, Joe Wurzelbacher, complained to Obama that the Democrat's tax plan would punish him if he purchased the plumbing company he currently works for.
Sensing an opening, and a chance for McCain to finally show his economic bona fides, "Joe the Plumber" was born. McCain used Joe's moniker over twenty times in last night's Hofstra University debate. Joe was to be seen as the real life cousin of Sarah Palin's fictitious, Joe Six-Pack. It was not too hard a stretch to imagine Joe out with his beer drinking buddies at the local bowling alley, pouring disdain on the "effete" Obama and his "class warfare" tax policies. From a distance it would seem that the plucking of the once unknown Toledo Joe might in fact become a last minute brilliant move.
Oh, but just like Palin before him, no one in the McCain campaign decided to get down and dirty and check out Joe's background. As this blog is posted we are learning more and more about this American everyman. We now know that Joe goes to your house without a license. We know that he has worked for about six years as a plumber. We know that he is not a fan of Social Security or any government health care. We also know that according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average plumber (licensed) made $47,350 in 2007. Judging by his house, where Joe basked in the light of one interview after another, we can tell that Joe is probably in the lower end of the middle class. With credit tight and things difficult, we also can question whether Joe is as close to making the business purchase that he so boldly stated that was so imminent, when he confronted Obama. We also do not know why Joe is a single dad and whether he has ever gotten that government assistance that he so readily dismisses.
It is now crunch time in the election. No more face to face meetings between the candidates. In fact, thousands of citizens in most states are already finished with their voting. The clock is ticking away. Everyone and everything that the McCains have thrown at Obama has failed. In one last desperate move, here comes Joe Wurzelbacher. You can bet that his background and all his opinions and his political ties are being investigated by the mainstream media and thousands of bloggers. If McCain's past choices are a clue, we could expect in a day or two, to no longer see Joe in the bright light of the TV studios as he disappears under that kitchen sink in an anonymous home on a quiet street in Toledo, Ohio.
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