The McCain campaign is so predictable and so shameless.
First, McCain drags this random “Joe the Plumber” into the spotlight to do McCain’s lying for him. Then, when the left responds by pointing out that “Joe the Plumber” is lying, McCain tries to malign the left for victimizing Joe.
Let’s review what McCain had to say at the presidential debate Wednesday:
I would like to mention that a couple of days ago, Senator Obama was out in Ohio and he had an encounter with a guy who’s a plumber. His name is Joe Wurtzelburger (sic). Uh, Joe wants to buy the business that he’s been in for all these years, worked 10, 12 hours per day, and he wanted to buy the business, but he looked at your (Obama’s) tax plan, and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes. You were going to put him in a higher tax bracket which was going to increase his taxes, which was going to cause him not to be able to employ people. Which Joe was trying to realize the American dream.
These are just lies. Joe the Plumber did not look at Obama’s tax plan and discover he would pay higher taxes under Obama’s plan. Joe would pay less under Obama’s plan. So Joe the Plumber doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Obama’s plan would not prevent Joe the Plumber from employing anyone.
Obviously, we can forgive Joe the Plumber for being ignorant of Obama’s tax plan. Joe the Plumber is a plumber, not a policy analyst. But McCain can be held responsible for making Joe the Plumber’s false, ignorant statements the focal point of his campaign. It’s disappointing and contemptible when a candidate lies about policy – but it’s far more disgusting when a candidate exploits the ignorance of an “ordinary Joe” to advance his own lies, effectively throwing relatively innocent civilians into the line of campaign fire.
Even Joe admits that McCain was lying during the debate, according to a CBS news report.
Wurzelbacher said Obama’s tax plan wouldn’t affect him right now, because he doesn’t make $250,000. “But I hope someday I’ll make that,” he said.
“If you believed (Obama), I’d be receiving his tax cuts,” Wurzelbacher said. “But I don’t look at it that way. He’d still be hurting others.”
Of course, we already know that McCain is a disgusting candidate. The question is, will it work? Since the debate, the media has pointed out that Joe is not a licensed plumber and owes back taxes. Here’s what the McCain campaign has said recently:
“The response from Senator Obama and his campaign yesterday was to attack Joe,” Mr. McCain said. “People are digging through his personal life, and he has TV crews camped out in front of his house. He didn’t ask for Senator Obama to come to his house. He wasn’t recruited or prompted by our campaign. He just asked a question. And Americans ought to be able to ask Senator Obama tough questions without being smeared and targeted with political attacks.”
(Update) And here is what some guy at Pajamas Media had to say about the assault on Joe:
I realize it’s all about winning at this point. But someone has to ask: What has happened to the Democratic Party?
It seems like just yesterday that the party of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy was talking about income equality and civil rights and worker protections and going to bat for the little guy, the blue collar laborer, the everyday Joe the Plumber.
Now, the well-to-do elites who run the Democratic Party — and their surrogates — greet these people with brickbats. They insult them, talk down to them, and even try to destroy them. Isn’t that the sort of war on the working class that Democrats are always accusing those greedy and heartless Republicans of waging?
Who, specifically, is going after Joe the Plumber with a brickbat? Who is talking down to Joe the Plumber? Who is trying to destroy Joe the Plumber? Is this writer referring to people like me, who point out that Joe’s claim that he would pay more taxes under Obama’s tax plan was WRONG — and that Joe is either ignorant of Obama’s plan or lying?
The right wing is using cultural divisions to create an environment where John McCain can repeat a false claim by an “ordinary Joe” like Joe the Plumber and when Democrats challenge that claim, they can be accused of insulting and even violently attacking middle class Americans.
What Dems need is to find a guy with an all-American (in other words, white male Christian) sounding name and an all-American sounding job to say something sleazy and false about McCain. Then, when the Republicans try to defend themselves against these false, sleazy charges, we can just accuse them of beating up on poor old Kevin the Farmer or whatever.
How about this: John McCain voted against benefits for Iraq War veterans.
Wait! That won’t work! It’s true!