I don’t care about Joe the would-be Plumber. I’m sad that he is probably going to lose his job because he doesn’t have a license to plumb. Based on his ideas about Social Security, I think Joe the Plumber is a first-rate moron. But I don’t want to see the guy be out of work. He should pay his taxes, however. He’s got a lien on his house now because he doesn’t pay his taxes. That’s not good. And Obama will cut this catfish’s taxes more than McCain, making Joe less of a deadbeat. Sarah Palin begged her speechwriters not to include anything mentioning Joe the Plumber. Now we know why.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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He’ll be the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question.
And I’ll never get it right.
Especially… if we have to spell the full name of SAMUEL Joseph Wurzelbackingoverthecliffwithnotowline.
I much prefer “Facts in Five”. Trivia game, but we write down what we do know. 🙂
Some good news from here in the last hour.
U.S. Supreme Court backs Brunner in elections dispute
Actually, I don’t like this turn of events. It isn’t the guy’s fault that he got dragged out in front of the world like this – he just asked Obama a question. Sure he might not have really been an undecided voter, but his question was one that other folks might have and it wasn’t like it was a “gotcha” for Obama – he gave a reasonable and principled answer to it.
The guy shouldn’t be working as a plumber without a license, but stuff like this has a chilling effect on folks asking questions. Citizens should be able to ask reasonable questions of their elected officials without running the risk of reprisals.
OTOH, I haven’t seen if he agreed to let the McCain campaign use him as a prop for their campaign. If so, then he’s an idiot. It’s one thing to ask a question of a candidate in your neighborhood, it’s another to become part of the campaign and inject yourself into the media frenzy. If he did that, then while he might not actually deserve the blowback he’s getting, he certainly should have expected it.
Two things:
Um, according to the Toledo Division of Building Inspection, yes, he does have to have a license. It’s right there in the article Boo linked.
1. He’s stated that he’s unhappy at being used as a prop by the McCain campaign.
I hadn’t seen that. Link?
2. His boss is a licensed plumber so the law states that he doesn’t have to be one.
Um, no. Here’s a link to a Toledo Blade article about this, and the money quote is:
I know he said that was what the law was, but that’s not the case. He may be confused about it, or his boss may have been skirting the law.
But my point still stands – the guy didn’t do anything wrong by asking Obama a question. It was the McCain camp that pulled him into this by making a big deal about it. If they asked him first that’s one thing, but if they pulled him onto the national spotlight and made him a prop without letting him know what was coming, that’s just despicable on their part.
LA TIMES:
And yet the Toledo Blade story and the story that Booman linked to both say otherwise on the licensing issue.
I’m waiting for someone to retract a story somewhere. Because there are too many “facts” out there swirling around this story.
And the fact that it “bothered him” doesn’t mean that he didn’t agree to let them use him as a prop – it may just mean that he didn’t understand exactly what that would entail. Which doesn’t surprise me – McCain’s crew seemed to do a horrible job of figuring out whether this guy would be a good campaign prop for them or not. They did him a disservice if that’s the case.
The question is this, does Joe work as a plumber or as a plumber’s apprentice? If he works as a plumber, i.e. independently, then he needs to be examined as to his knowledge, skills, and raining and be licensed as a result. If he does work that is always checked by Newell, then he is an apprentice and does not need to be licensed.
No, I think stuff likes this has a chilling effect on bald-faced liars. He’s talking a bunch a big ish, and then he’s found to be a fraud. Two tears in a bucket is all he gets from me.
And someone doing work in your home who is unlicensed can end up costing you thousands, not to mention make legitimate people in your trade/profession look bad.
Not to mention his “tap dance” crap. That alone is worth the extra scrutiny.
I consider the attention he received a public service.
Ouch.
Joe the Plumber stands out from the crowd: he’s got that worked-out look and a shaved skull… just like the (two) prop questioners in the 2nd debate McCain gravitated to. The kind of guy whose vote McCain thinks will be easy to snare.
Sweeping up the dopes for rallies and crowd scenes, angry pugnacious Americans with a chip on their shoulder is a Republican specialty.
That the glare of the media guts these people like a fish doesn’t mean a damn to the Repubs — they’ve done their duty, now roll over and dissapear to make way for the next sucker to get crucified.
I wonder if maybe Joe could sue McCain for using him (including revealing his last name!) in his campaign.
McCain’s election people just didn’t do their homework. This guy makes only 40K a year and could just bearly pay his rent or mortgage let alone by a business, yet I am willing to bet that, in spite of being unlicensed, his company is charging $120 an hour for his services. I can’t imagine that his employer cares to publicize the company flim-flam by coming out in support of Joe’s complaint: an unlicensed plumber messing around with your pipes. In Michigan you only need two years of apprentiseship and the passing of a test to become a licensed master plumber.
That in any case has been my experience with plumbers in my area: unlicensed plumbers out to rip you off.
I don’t feel sorry for the guy.
Granted, McCain exploited him. I’m still not unconvinced that he wasn’t a plant. I also still want to know if he is or isn’t related to the Robert Wurzelbacher who went to jail in the Keating Five thing. It shouldn’t be hard to prove either way. Or at least if Joe, who isn’t Joe, is related to the Wurzelbachers who run that septic tank business in Ohio. I mean, how many Wurzelbachers are there?
The guy said some very stupid things. After his encounter with Obama he got back in front of the camera again, and again he said stupid things. If someone is stupid enough to announce being against Social Security a week after the stock market took that huge dive then the person people should feel sorry for is the person who cares for this guy.
You say or do stupid things in front of a camera and it’s liable to come back at you.
Streakers beware.
About 173 or 174, according to the people who dig into genealogy.
The are too many clues, as Poirot would say, but I do believe that he is related to Charles Keating’s son-in-law, and Keating still maintains ties to both McCains.
As to the Wasilla connection? Less likely.
In any case, my nose tells me that “Joe the Plumber” is a Republican plant, if not full scale operative.
Why would Fox reporters or whomever be watching the debate with him if they didn’t know in advance that he’d be featured? Given the sheer number of people who’ve shaken Obama’s hand, the odds that the reporters would cuddle up with Joe before the debate started are rather unbelievable.
Why would anybody on McCain’s team choose an unvetted plant to feature on national television? Well, they did choose an unvetted VP nominee, so I’d say that they are uneducatable, and that all embarrassment is deserved.
Joe isn’t a licensed plumber? He isn’t registered to vote? He doesn’t make a quarter million dollars/year?
:pfffffft:
One thing that does surprise me. Joe’s shaven head and burly muscularity puts him in the same category as Jeff Gannon, and I’m surprised that Bush hasn’t scheduled a meeting. He really likes the bald ones. And fakes.