(Photo: Jim Young/Reuters) Wurzelbacher speaking to Sen. Barack Obama about taxes while the candidate campaigned near Toledo, Ohio, last week.
And so “Joe the Plumber” dies a swift, ignominious death.
In so doing, he enters the pantheon of fictitious Republican agitprop–such as Reagan’s apocryphal Cadillac-driving welfare queens–that have no basis in reality.
“Joe the Plumber,” you will remember, is the close-minded gentleman who stopped Sen. Barack Obama on the campaign trail in Ohio last week to ask about his taxes.
“I am getting ready to buy a company that makes $250,000 to $280,000 a year,” ‘Joe the Plumber’ asked. “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?”
The candidate patiently explained his tax plan. But it did not stop newspaper headline writers from demonizing Sen. Obama. And John McCain, the Republican nominee, then made sure Joe the Plumber would live on in infamy by bringing up the encounter during Wednesday night’s final presidential debate.
He flogged Mr. Obama with the plumber with some success, about the only argument with which he gained some traction all night.
But that was yesterday. This is today. The New York Times followed up and, it turns out, “Joe the Plumber” is not all he claimed to be:
Turns out that ‘Joe the Plumber,’ as he became nationally known when Senator John McCain made him a theme at Wednesday night’s third and final presidential debate, may run a plumbing business but he is not a licensed plumber. His full name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher. And he owes a bit in back taxes.
The premise of his question to Mr. Obama about taxes may also be flawed, according to tax analysts.
The local plumber’s union said Mr. Wurzelbacher does not hold a license either as a plumber or as a contractor.
“He’s basically playing games with the world,” Thomas Joseph, the local’s business manager, told the Times in an interview on Thursday.
Wurzelbacher was interviewed on the Fox News Channel and conservative groups. They seized on these set of words by Mr. Obama:
“I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
McCain came alive during the debate, taunting Obama repeatedly with wanting to take Wurzelbacher’s money and spread it around. After the debate, CBS anchor Katie Couric came calling. She even laughed when Wurzelbacher compared Sen. Obama with the entertainer Sammy Davis Jr., encouraging him to see a job with “Meet the Press.”
“You know, I’ve always wanted to ask one of these guys a question and really corner them and get them to answer a question,” Wurzelbacher told Ms. Couric, “for once instead of tap dancing around it, and unfortunately I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance . . . almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.”
Wurzelbacher was nowhere to be found when the New York Times came calling on Thursday. He did not answer messages left on his home phone and there was no answer at his plumbing business.
“All contractors are licensed, and he does not have a license, either as a contractor or a plumber,” Mr. Joseph, the union official, told the Times, citing a search of government records. “I can’t find that he’s ever even applied for any kind of apprenticeship, and he has never belonged to local 189 in Columbus, which is what he claims on his Facebook page.”
According to public records, Mr. Wurzelbacher has been subject to two liens, each over $1,000, one of which –a personal tax lien–is still outstanding.
And his question to Mr. Obama about paying taxes? According to some tax analysts, if Mr. Wurzelbacher’s gross receipts from his business is $250,000–and not his taxable income–then he would not have to pay higher taxes under Mr. Obama’s plan, and probably would be eligible for a tax cut.
The only thing I came away with from watching his encounter with Mr. Obama was how patiently the candidate answer his questions and how close-minded Wurzelbacher seemed. Meanwhile, someone ought to tell Mr. McCain that his poster boy is not what he seems because, as the Times reports, he’s still banging that drum loudly on the campaign trail.
It would be easy to read this story and point to the sheer stupidity of the people profiled.
Against all apparent evidence, these people chose to believe demonstrably false rumors about presidential candidate Barack Obama.
In fact, when offered evidence to refute the rumors, they cling (yeah, cling) to the false narratives.
On his corner of College Street, Jim Peterman stares at the four American flags planted in his front lawn and rubs his forehead. Peterman, 74, is a retired worker at Cooper Tire, a father of two, an Air Force veteran and a self-described patriot. He took one trip to Washington in 1989 — best vacation of his life — and bought a statue of the Washington Monument that he still displays in a glass case in his living room.
He believes a smart vote is an American’s greatest responsibility. Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama continues to eat at him.
On the television in his living room, Peterman has watched enough news and campaign advertisements to hear the truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service. But on the Internet, in his grocery store, at his neighbor’s house, at his son’s auto shop, Peterman has also absorbed another version of the Democratic candidate’s background, one that is entirely false: Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
“It’s like you’re hearing about two different men with nothing in common,” Peterman said. “It makes it impossible to figure out what’s true, or what you can believe.”
The writer of this Washington Post piece then takes a survey of a street, named College Street, no less, of what would have to be the most stupid collection of neighbors ever assembled in one place. The only problem: They are more typical than they are the exception.
We, Americans, are, indeed, that stupid.
Take dumb-asses like Pollard in the Post story:
“I think Obama would be a disaster, and there’s a lot of reasons,” said Pollard, explaining the rumors he had heard about the candidate from friends he goes camping with. “I understand he’s from Africa, and that the first thing he’s going to do if he gets into office is bring his family over here, illegally. He’s got that racist [pastor] who practically raised him, and then there’s the Muslim thing. He’s just not presidential material, if you ask me.”
Pollard believes Obama is a Muslim and that he has a racist pastor who “practically raised him.” Obama is either a Christian raised by a “racist pastor,” or a Muslim. He cannot possibly be both. But that does not deter this idiot.
I won’t repeat any more their inanities about Obama being Muslim or gay, or his being from Africa, as if any of those things would be wrong (except to point out you still have to be born on American soil in order to run for the presidency).
This story makes me sad. And angry.
Jeanette Collins, a 77-year-old, uttered perhaps the truest words in the piece: “All I know for sure about Obama is that we’re not ready for him.”
Only the aforementioned Peterman remains open-minded on College St., and he’s swaying to the beat of the rumors.
“I don’t know. The whole thing just scares me,” Peterman said. “I’m almost starting to feel like the best choice is not voting at all.”
The rumors have so far defied both the Truth Squad that the Obama campaign has sent out and the efforts of enlightened people who have offered their neighbors actual facts, instead of rumors.
Gerri Kish, a 66-year-old born in Hawaii, read both of Obama’s autobiographies. She has close friends, she said, who still refuse to believe her when she swears Obama is Christian. Then she hands them the books, and they refuse to read them. “They just want to believe what they believe,” she said. “Nothing gets through to them.”
The new advertisement running in Findlay, in which Obama is pictured with his white mother and white grandparents as he talks about developing a “deep and abiding faith in the country I love” while growing up in the Kansas heartland, is dismissed by residents of College Street as the desperate lies of another dishonest Washington politician.
For the past month, two students from the University of Findlay have spent their Tuesday nights walking from door to door in the city to tell voters about Obama. Erik Cramer and Sarah Everly target Democrats and swing voters exclusively, but they’ve still experienced mixed results. Sometimes, at a front door, they mention their purpose only to have a dozen rumors thrown back at them and the door slammed. “People tell us that we’re in the wrong town,” Everly said.
Soon, on a Tuesday night, they’ll walk down College Street — past the American flags, past the LeMasters, past the Pollards — and knock on Jim Peterman’s front door. They will ask for two minutes of his time, and Peterman will give it to them. He will listen to their story, weighing facts against fiction. For a few minutes, he might even believe them.
Then he’ll close his door and go inside, back to his life. Back to his grocery store, back to his son’s auto shop, back to the gossip on College Street. Back to the rumors again.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY), scored comprehensive wins in Ohio and Texas. She also won in Rhode Island. Her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), won in Vermont. The wins helped stanch Mrs. Clinton’
s string of 11 straight losses since her big night on Super Tuesday.
The next ‘fight of the century’
figures to be in Pennsylvania in late April. And, as she did before last night, she may have to sustain another string of losses to Sen. Obama in the race to be the Democratic Party nominee for president of the United States before that primary.
Thus it always is with the Clintons, drama, emotions, whether real or cooked up.
There can be no doubt anymore that the Clintons will do whatever it takes, including damaging the eventual Democratic Party nominee, to win this nomination. For Sen. Clinton, the nomination is destiny. For former Pres. Bill Clinton, it is redemption.They are not about to stand by and let Sen. Obama, soaring rhetoric or not, get in the way of that. What Mr. Obama has to show now is how he fights.
Senator Barack Obama at a rally in Houston on Tuesday night. Photo (From nytimes.com is by Rick Bowmer/Associated Press
An impressive tenth straight victory for Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), in the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. He cut across every demographic in Wisconsin and bested his opponent in areas that were once weaknesses.
The campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY), hasn’t thrown in the towel. Not Yet. Remember the Alamo! She said. See you in Texas, she said. She’ll work the night shift, she said. It’s about deeds, not words, she said. Besides, don’t listen to those sweet words because Obama plagiarized some of them, she said.
Hmmnn.
An argument could be made that all these victories suddenly put Ohio in play and Texas may even be winnable for Sen. Obama.