Enough Of “Joe The Plumber” Already!
October 28, 2008Ok, I realize that the media was going to glom onto this guy when he came up a bazillion times in the debate, but enough is enough. It has gotten to the point where “Joe” is not only on the campaign trail with McCain/Palin, but the media is reporting his statements as if he’s a candidate himself. Just check this out:
‘Joe the Plumber’ Backs Claim That Obama Would Bring ‘Death to Israel’
That’s an actual headline. On Fox.
So, naturally, Shep Smith had to call him up and give the “could you explain that?” interview.
Or how about this:
Joe the Plumber says Obama would make US socialist
That’s an AP headline.
Or this:
Records searches anger Joe the Plumber
The Columbus Dispatch.
Is it just me, or does this “Joe the Plumber” blitz give you the feeling that we’re living in a children’s book? Are we all six year-olds?
Apparently, McCain thinks so, as he’s adopted and embraced the Toys ‘R’ Us-esque marketing gimmick and plastered him all over his campaign website as well:
Go here, and you’ll see videos of Brad the Welder, Jeff the Truck Driver, Tara the Teacher, Josie the Transcriptionist, Jeff the Realtor, etc.
{{{sigh}}}
I realize that most of the country doesn’t give a rat’s hinder what my opinion is. OK, scratch that. Most of the country doesn’t know who the heck I am. But I certainly wouldn’t expect Fox or the AP to pick up the Chamber, anyway. Chen the Salesman hasn’t gotten the attention of David the Campaign Strategist, I guess.
Hey, NO FAIR!!!
And with great hesitation to click “publish”, I dub this the one and only Official Chamber “Joe the Plumber” thread.
ChenZhen's Chamber 
“The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded”
America needs better education, not just to be competitive, but to elevate public discourse.
Thanks for stopping by, Obiwan. In the spirit of the thread, I give you a Tootsie Pop.
Joe the plumber is probably going to go down in history books as the “banana peel” that tripped up the Obamessiah. In the future Democrat candidates will have to learn to be (even) more careful about contact with the general public.
I mean can you imagine the audacity of “Joe” to ask a question of a candidate; to actually research the effect of tax policy on his ability to finance a business before he made a decision to pledge his home as collateral and make the commitment to hire workers? In these days of epidemic foreclosures that way of thinking seems oddly out of the mainstream thought process, n’est pas?
Right paleo,
cause the banana peel theory is supported by the polls? or just a gut instinct?
Chen,
Hate to break it to you, but you’re stuck with Joe 2 more eyars anyways. He’s announced his intent to run for congress in 2010. Laura Ingraham even offered to run his PR campaign.
Joe the Plumber only works amoung conservatives, who even though they know hes an idiot, they still cheer for him because hes the only thing McCain has left.
Marc:
“cause the banana peel theory is supported by the polls? ”
Read it, view the graph, and you decide:
Trend lines for both candidates are firming up. The liars and uncommitted voters are… in the words of Malcolm X (later shamelessly plagiarized by Reverend Wright) “coming home to roost.”
What I don’t get is how they make him out to be some working class Joe, but if what he said is correct, then he makes $280,000 a year (or is it his business that’s worth that much? I forget.) That puts him in one of the top earning percentiles. Only something like 1.5% of the population makes that much money.
Oh yeah, here’s the Tax Foundation on how much Joe the Plumber would pay under the two different plans in 2009. $48,511 vs. $48, 254. With 5% growth and 5% inflation, he ought to be paying around one thousand more per year under Obama in 2011. Whoa.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/23780.html
brainexplosions-
Yea, the whole thing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Not only does Joe not make that much, as an unlicensed plumber he has a long way to go before he’s running the company, so in the meantime he’d actually be better off under Obama’s tax plan.
Running for Congress? Good luck with that, I guess. The guy said that he didn’t care that there were no WMD’s in Iraq.
Take one step beyond the gimmick, and he’s more like “Joe the Dumber“, and an attempt to appeal to the Dr. Seuss in the doofuses out there. It’s kind of insulting to the collective intelligence, IMO.
What’s confusing, however, is that the media is complicit in the scheme. Why run the headlines at all, and if they’re going to, why not run them with his real frikkin name? (which is Sam, just in case all this wasn’t ridiculous enough).
brainexplosions
I think he (Joe) was talking more about having a business with total revenue of 250,000 dollars per year. In other words having himself and two other employees being able to bill their customers that much per year. The whole discussion got sidetracked by people who don’t understand the difference between gross, revenue, profit, earn, net, etc. Without a clear definition of those terms and how used by each party in the conversation, it’s pretty impossible to figure out what the difference would be between the McCain and Obama tax plans.
Asking a Harvard educated lawyer who specializes in civil rights issues a question about business was Joe’s first mistake. At least McCain is honest when he says that he’s a tad weak on the economic side. I prefer that to seeing Obama pretend that he truly understands our national economy and the effect that massive tax cuts with negative tax rates to the poor, coupled with massive federal spending on health care and new entitlement programs, and a crippled business/investor environment will have. Obama should have punted the question to an adviser to get back to Joe.
Paleo,
first, you’re accreditting a 1 point shift in gallup to trouble? A shift way within the MOE?
Not to mention the fact that state polling numbers, have been holding steadily above mccain, or have been improving in nearly every poll.
You remember that thing the electoral college, right?
Much like I did at Marc’s place I have to chime in with Cindy Sheehan. Folks be honest more than these two people have launched campaigns on only the 15 seconds of fame phenom.
Some people have actually campaigned out of devotion for such things as drunk driving and teen girls being victims of domestic violence.”We the People” are allowed to get angry and do something sometimes still.
The tone Chen takes here (and others elsewhere) is that politics is best left to the pro’s. That’s a sad and sick way to go and just to tweak Chen a bit….UNAMERICAN !
Alfie-
I suppose that’s a fair analogy. For what its worth, I did rip Sheehan here in the Chamber as well. For being a walking soap opera, that is.
hhmmm…
I certainly feel that anyone can run for public office, so I don’t think that was intended to be my tone. But I’ll praise and/or rip the candidate just like anyone else based on the same criteria. I know you’re not saying that political neophytes are immune from criticism, right? If “Joe the Plumber” wants to run, I say go for it. Perhaps he should consider treating us like grown-ups and use his real name, though.
Nobody ever heard of the walking soap opera named Barack Obama before he gave a pretty speech a few years ago.
All Joe the Plumber has to do is win a seat in Congress, and then make sure his name gets added to a couple of bills. That will get him the experience he needs to run our nation. Then he can launch his presidenatial campaign for 2012. Campaigning will round out his experience nicely.
By the time elections come, he’ll be more than ready. He can point to the Obama administration that will have proven unable to dig our economy out of its hole, and claim that only he can bring America the Change it needs in these trying times.
He doesn’t have to actually prove he’s capable of doing that. Simply saying so will be enough.
Marc:
“You remember that thing the electoral college, right?
Absolutely. My prediction is:
McCain 284
Obama 254
Polls tend to overestimate the number of Dems that actually go to the polls by 3%. I also assume that people lie to pollsters, which is a safe assumption that I touched on in this:
This is also a good article about how people lie:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20050617-000014.html
In the words of Joe Biden;
“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
Anonymous people want to appear to pollsters as young, and hip, and able to look past the color of a persons skin. But when they get into the voting booth, when it really counts, my money is on them voting with a lot of other variables at work.
Chen:
I just posted a comment with a couple links in it. I have the feeling the spam filter grabbed it. I notice that WordPress grabs a lot of legitimate comments that way. Maybe you can retrieve it from purgatory?
OK paleo I grabbed your post, thanks for the heads up.
I’m off to work now. BBL
Thanks Chen. TTYL.
Right, people lie to pollsters, but rarely all in the same way. And none of the info you cite actually explains well how or where people will lie to pollsters in this election.
You also provide no explanation for how your gallup trendline predictions lead to your electoral college predictions. Specifically, how a national vote swing would swing the in the different battleground states and why.
Which in my book gives you about zero credibility.
Marc:
Right, people lie to pollsters, but rarely all in the same way. And none of the info you cite actually explains well how or where people will lie to pollsters in this election.
They lie to pollsters in order to present themselves as something they are not. In the case you read, also in pre-employment questionnaires, they attempt to present themselves as some sort of super honest individual. Which observations have proven that they are not. Hey, it could very well be that people that claim they are going to vote for McCain are really going to vote for Obama. But which presents a person in a more favorable light; saying, “Yeah, I like the old dude” or “I don’t have an ounce of racism in my body, so I’m voting for Obama.” Which is more likely to be a lie?
I may have zero credibility in your eyes, but do you naturally assume that everyone tells you the truth? If so, I’ve got a hot real estate deal for you with a no-money-down, zero interest, no-doc, sub-prime loan.
People here who read my stuff on a regular basis know I am a dubious believer, at best, in polls.
I’ve actually written many a post criticizing different pollsters and poll techniques. And yes, there does seem to be arguements (good arguments) for both a bradley and a reverse bradley effect.
However, everyone seems to think a better than 90% turnout for obama amongst blacks i likely to negate whatever happens amongst whites unless they’ve been lying in the double digits, which is something the data hasn’t supported at all.
I’m sure it will be a Caribou Barbie/Joe the Plumber ticket in 2012. Oh yes, those will synapses that don’t work will from now on represent the republic Party. Naturally. It’s where they are today, so why not run with it! Yep, The Idiot Party.
Ugh.
Obama dives into the childishness:
(at about 6:20)
“Nancy the Nurse”, “Tina the Teacher”, etc.
Anyway, “Joe” is now a full-fledged celebrity. He’s got a publicist now. Looking for a book deal. And a country album?
Please, make it stop.
Keith Olbermann just did a special campaign comment on “Joe” that expressed your exasperation to a tee. It can be found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27445192/
Let’s just hope all this sound and fury signifying nothing fades away on November 5.
Keith Olbermann should do a special about Keith Olbermann’s lack luster boring show…
Red Pill-
LOL Is that all?
CZ says
Why ? I used the word tone earlier and perhaps it wasn’t the best word choice but dude you’re out of control.
Just ignore him.
Even if we wanted to ignore him, he is mulling over a record deal and a book deal. I don’t listen to country music, at least I would think he would be in the country music genre, except I do like Carrie Underwood and that girl who sings, “drew looks at me, I fake a smile so he won’t see…”.
Either way, I’ll probably see his book on display at Borders, his CD displayed at Borders, his song being played on the radio in which then I’ll have to change the channel, he will probably be on VH1 and/or MTV and I don’t watch FOX News but hes probably up for a position as political analyst. Joe might even be on Jerry Springer or Murray’s because he failed to pay child support. He will probably be on Judge Judy after he gets called out on Jerry Springer. He will probably be in court because he failed to pay his taxes on time, in which FOX News and CNN will show live footage. He might have his own reality TV show where it never ends kind of like the VH1 reality shows. He will probably achieve his ultimate goal of getting a plumbers license in which Bravo will air a new reality show about how Joe the Plumber is running his own plumbers business. He will also be in joke which means Joe will be mentioned on late night comedy shows.
In my philosophy class this might be under the category of “slippery slope” but its possible. May not seem bad now, but Hollywood is going to have a field day with this guy. Oh and then VH1 will revive their “Behind the Music” series in which they talk about the down turn spiral of Joe from being on top of the world to being an alcoholic….
Sorry Alfie,
Gonna have to agree with Chen here:
Because you see until he pays his taxes and child support (things were not supposed to know i know, but would once he ran for office) he’s already in violation of congressional ethics rules.
Meaning he’d be kicked out as soon as he got in.
Joe the Plumber 2010? Pleasssse, make it stop.
I don’t want to be seen as the JTP defender here but…
@ Sensico I like your comment. I’m hoping it’s meant with a degree of humor cause it’s pretty funny. Any book would immediately end up on the bargain rack. The song won’t be pursued by I tunes but undoubtedly end up on You Tube.Hell people buy William Shatner and David Hasselhoff songs. Bravo won’t touch him for sssssoooo many reasons. I do imagine there are a number of pseudo journalists aspiring to “break” the “where is he now story” though.
@ Marc..let’s make democracy stop ? Seriously though. I remember back in the day when a certain family from Arkansas and their friends were all pissy about a rotund guy on the radio.I remember a leather clad guy who told dirty nursery rhymes. I remember a lot of people and they all have the same thing in common. People jump on their cases and actually help to make what they hate bigger. Sure the bigger they are the harder they fall but why help build the pedestal. Ignore the plumber, and be the bigger person when he’s all done by not laughing. Trust me ignoring the plumber is nothing like ignoring the corporal.
Yes, it was humor. Alfie has a point here 😮 😀 If one keeps talking about the people they hate, then the person they hate gets more attention then needed. Saying, “Enough with Joe the Plumber already” and then writing about how you don’t want to keep hearing about Joe the Plumber is really counter-intuitive if you think about it or at least counter-productive.
To be honest Alfie, I want to ignore him, but when McCain names his campaign trips the “Joe the Plumber tour it gets pretty hard.”
Also, rather ashamed to admit I own the Shatner album. All in all it sucks, however, at times you can’t help but smiles because, well, of course Shatner sucks. Its kind of why I bought the album.
LMFAO
“Joe’s with us today. Joe where are ya? Where is Joe? Is Joe here with us today? Joe, I thought you were here today.”
That’s embarrassing.
The irony is that McCain was speaking at Defiance H.S.
Sensico-
Agreed/good point. Which is why I posted: And with great hesitation to click “publish”, I dub this the one and only Official Chamber “Joe the Plumber” thread. I suppose I could have kept my feelings on the d/l, but that is counter-intuitive to being a blogger. Hence, my conflict. The thread is here, and I can’t really go back on it, so I figure we might as well get it out of our systems.
I should note that I had a similar conundrum arise with Ann Coulter wrt the “faggot” thing, and declared from that post on that the Chamber shall be a Coulter-free zone. Ignoring is really the best policy, for all involved.
Sorry, but it just hit my funny bone when Sarah Palin gave a shout out to “Tito the Builder.”
The one good thing about this absurd Joe stuff is it gives Obama a good opportunity for zingers like last night in Florida when he said “99.9% of plumbers make less than $250,000.00”.
“99.9% of plumbers make less than $250,000.00″.
Yeah, I know. Who ever it was above that talked about the confusion over income, revenue, etc. had a point but people are upset about Obama’s tax plan vis a vis Joe the Plumber because they think it means working Joe’s will have their taxes raised. Which is false (as long as he actually lives up to his campaign promises.)
The weird part is that McCain believes in redistribution. He even made a big fucking fuss about how he halted his campaign so he could go back to Washington and redistribute WAY more money than Obama plans on. All the non-flat taxers out there believe in some form of redistribution, they just quibble about how far to turn each knob.
The ‘socialism’ and ‘marxist’ claim makes Ameicans look stupid. It’s embarrassing.
Another thing is, it seems so weird to be arguing about Joe the Plumber’s tax rate when literally the entire world credit market just about froze up, Joe the Free Marketeer himself Alan Greenspan said he’s confused and scared because Free Market JuJu doesn’t work so well anymore, and banks around the world are being nationalized.
At worst, arguing about Obama and McCain tax policies will be like arguing about what suit to wear to the firing squad.
Yes, I realized I didn’t spell Americans correctly.
Or maybe it seems weird arguing about Joe the Plumbers tax rate…since he doesn’t pay his taxes. Sorry, Im big on following the rules/laws and I hate when people jip the system.
and I love it when Palin says “tito the builder”…its adorable and cutesy…ok maybe folksy. Either way she completely made me forget (for a short period of time) about her lack of experience with that statement.
Joe the Plumber is anti-American. YES! I did it! (LOL)
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