Posted on 10/18/2008 5:56:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
Can Joe Wurzelbacher, Joe the Plumber from Ohio, change the course of this campaign? Thats one question that was raised at the third presidential debate. Wurzelbacher is the man who, in a moment caught on YouTube, confronts Barack Obama on his plan to raise taxes on people like him. Obama, sotto voce, replies that he wants to spread the wealth around. In the third consecutive week in which the headlines of the financial crisis have prompted both candidates to denounce Wall Street greed, the image of those whom Obama would tax higher was suddenly not an investment banker but a plumber.
The conventional wisdom going into the final debate was that the financial meltdown has pretty much finished off John McCains campaign and has made an Obama victory inevitable. The polls -- not just the national tracking polls but those in critical states -- have supported this view unequivocally. The Democratic Party entered this campaign year with impressive advantages that have been undercut by one surprising development after another -- the protracted and bitter contest for the Democratic nomination, the success of the surge strategy in Iraq, $4-a-gallon gasoline, the overgrandiosity of the Obama campaign.
Yet the narrow lead that McCain had after the conventions vanished (if the tracking polls can be trusted) precisely on Sept. 18, the day that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke observed a coagulation of credit that threatened to bring down the economy and, in response, advanced the 1.0 version of their financial bailout/rescue package.
In the days that followed, voters seemed to be unnerved by McCains impulsiveness and reassured by Obamas calmness. A majority reverted to the default mode of those long-ago days before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary: In bad times, throw the candidate of the in party out and put the candidate of the out party in.
It is obvious that the economic platform of neither candidate was fashioned with anything in mind quite like the situation the nation now faces. Obamas cadre of sophisticated economists, if they knew that we would be facing a recession with the potential of ripening into something more dire, would hardly have recommended raising taxes, even on the evil rich like the deposed Lehman Brothers CEO (a Democratic contributor) or Joe the Plumber (more inclined to Republicans). Nor would they have advocated, absent the demands of the unions which do so much to finance and man Democratic campaigns, opposing the Colombia Free Trade Agreement or renegotiating NAFTA.
DECISION TIME
Both Obama and McCain have recently advanced additional economic planks to help hard-pressed, middle-class Americans. But neither can claim to have contributed much in the way of substance to the actual steps that Paulson and Bernanke -- and, critically, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown -- have taken to get credit circulating in the blood veins of the economy once again. The fact is that neither Obama nor McCain knows precisely what he would do upon taking office Jan. 20, and voters may sense that it is naive to expect they should.
Democratic spin artists have dismissed McCains attacks on Obama as distractions amid a possible economic disaster, and I suspect they will be proved right. Yet it remains the case that about half the voters have doubts about Obama.
In three debates, the spin artists go on, Obama has shown that he more than meets the minimal standards for the office, as Ronald Reagan did in the single debate in 1980, and in a year like that one, in which most voters want the in party out, that will be enough. But the 1980 debate was on the Thursday before the election, and the decisive swing came over the weekend. Voters took almost every minute they could. Will they take more time this year, and give some thought to Joe the Plumber?
Joe the Plumber is the game changer I think. It gave McCain his narrative to hit Obama for what he’s really doing - spreading the wealth - taking our money and giving it to someone else. Though I wish he would say spreading the wealth equals socialism.
If he keeps this up and keeps hitting hard, he will win.
This theme needs to go big very fast. I’M WITH JOE!
Freepers need to spread the word in every place there is a MAC or BO raly.
Purchase plungers and make signs in this theme to take to the rallies.
We are all plumbers now that need to unclog the system from impending over-taxation (Socialism) and the legalized ‘theft’ of our hard earned income.
Call to MAC/Palin campaigns and organize people to go with you.
If you are going to bring a plunger, remember that you can’t bring the stick part into a rally. So if you are staying outside a BO rally, that’s fine. If you are headed into the rally, you need to replace the stick with rolled corrogated paper carried separately until you’re in the rally.
This theme needs to be the universal cry against Socialism and carries the implicit message of unclogging the “waste’ from the system.
A dozen guys with plungers just freeped a BO rally in VA!
Support Joe, the first average Joe to stand up to the tyranny of neo-Marxism!
(We can say out his middle name “JOE”, but we can’t say Hussein without the risk of a lead pipe to the knees.)
They are attacking him relentlessly.
So be it, it will reflect badly back on them just as their attacks on Sarah have done, and it will continue to smoke Obama out for the marxist/socialist he is and the real impact of his so-called "change".
Just as Patrick Henry indicated, and that truth still holds today...if we will hold the course, God in Heaven will raise up friends to help fight these battles.
Sarah Palin is one such friend...now, out of obscurity, Joe the Plumber is another.
All thanks for this goes, IMHO, to a merciful God in Heaven! and millions of hard working, partiotic, loyal Americans who will not give up...two of which, Joe and Sarah, have been brought forth before us all to express these sentiments.
The truth is that the left, the Obama campaign, the DNC, and the MSM will lie, fabricate, misquote, commit fruad, beg, borrow, or steal in their effort to slow down what is happening on the ground with the McCain campaign right now, and particularly with the likes of Joe and especially Sarah Palin who is burrowing underneath all of their hype and drawing 25-30,000 people at a time to her rallies and getting the message of hope and conservative values out.
Obama and his ilk know it, they fear it, and they will do anything they can to stop it...but they shall also fail in the attempt. Truth has a way of shining all the brighter in darkness.
I can't believe the McCain camp didn't vet this poly plant. McCain is running the worst campaign since Michael Dukakis.
TRADES PEOPLE OF AMERICA UNITE!
The liberal elite look upon blue collar Americans with disdain. They also underestimate their intelligence and ability to spot a phony who wants to squash their idea of the American dream.
IMO, this will cost Obama the election. In their zealous efforts to help Obama, the MSM are hammering the nails in the Obama campaign’s coffin.
Survivors of 9-11 at the WTC commented how they, the white collar workers, had no idea what to do or how to respond. The gray- and blue-collar workers took action and saved the lives of many white-collar workers. The left does not value people such as these, who comprise a huge portion of the country.
Why would they need to vet a private citizen? He is a voter who dared ask “The One” a question. No vetting needed.
I do think Joe has changed the election. If McCain wins, this story should be made into a movie.
Are you calling the plumber, a plant? I watched the video, the plumber was minding his business in his front yard, and Obama walked up to him.
Besides the issues is not the plumber’s credentials, but Obama’s telling what he truly things...we need to “spread the wealth around.”
That is your opinion, but then you are entitled to it
What the hell are you talking about??
Interesting that you would think Joe is a plant. Obama came to Joe's home and asked him for his vote and then Joe asked Obama a simple question. So, you believe that somehow McCain got Obama to walk down that street where Joe lives, come up to Joe standing in his yard, and ask him for his vote? If true, WOW, McCain has scary scary powers.
Obama talked to the guy and the guy was literally able to smoke Obama out in five minutes on a neighborhood street and get him to explain the purpose of his policies to "share the wealth".
McCain would have been foolish not to take advantage of the opportunity and its is precisely because he did that the issue is remianing in the public eye about Obama's socialistic policies and their impact.
No need to vet Joe...and now the more the left attack him, the more other good, hard-workign Americans will see it and responsd negatively to the attackers.
flattorney is obviously a troll
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