Joe the Ringer?
Joe the Plumber is, it seems, a registered Republican. (Hat tip to Ben Smith of Politico, who got the item from the Toledo Blade.) Moreover, according to the logical Jed L at Daily Kos, he wasn't undecided either:
Speaking with Katie Couric, "Joe" said that he "wasn't swayed" by the debate last night, yet pretty much knew who he was going to vote for. So if (a) he wasn't swayed by the debate and (b) knows who he is going to vote for, then (c) he had already made up his mind before the debate.
Anyway, whether Joe is on the level or not, my sister-in-law, Karen Cook Velasti, makes this interesting point :
Tell Joe the plumber that a business without customers will fail no matter how little or how much he pays in taxes. If people are out of jobs, they won't be able to pay him for repairing his kitchen sink. However, if Joe the middle-class-man or Josephine the middle-class-woman get some of their tax money back or don't have to worry about medical bills, they might be able to hire him for that bathroom renovation they have been putting off.
P. S. Are you sitting down? Joe the Plumber is now reported to be related to the son-in-law of the former senior vice president of American Continental, the parent company of the bank you may have heard of, Lincoln Savings and Loan, owned by a fellow named Charles Keating. But if so it's OK, I guess, because he's not related to Bill Ayers.
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And it seems he probably owns several businesses already and his dad spent time in jail over Keating.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/16/02217/845
http://www.eisenstadtgroup.com/2008/10/15/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-related-to-charles-keating-oops/
Joe the plumber could come back to bite McCain in a big way ... by making people talk about Keating again.
October 16, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hum, McCain doesn't seem to be very good at vetting people.
=D
October 16, 2008 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is Joe even a Plumber? Only a plumbing CONTRACTOR makes $250000 or more a year--you know, the guys that do the plumbing installs on new high rise office buildings.
I can guarantee you that the guy who comes to replace the element in your hot water tank or unclog your toilet is making less than 75k a year.
October 16, 2008 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
he said to katie couric(?) that he doesn't make $250K.
my guess is he probably doesn't make half that but like so many people who vote republican imagine that he'll magically start making that much if we just keep lowering the taxes of people who already make that much.
October 16, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
fkaZ,
Bill Gates is worth $50 Billion and I don't think he should pay taxes because some day I might be worth $50 billion too.
October 18, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently he's not liscensed as a plumber or a plumber's apprentice at all. If he's working as a plumber under the table, he couldn't be making more than $30K/yr.
October 16, 2008 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
It occurred to me the guy is a ringer. He looks like he'd be related to someone from Cleveland Pat Buchanan defended.
But plumbers are not a popular profession. No one has sympathy for plumbers. You're never happy when you need one, they're never there when you want them, then they charge you an arm and a leg when they finally show up.
And you have see their butt crack when they work.
Not appealing..
October 16, 2008 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Joe may do plumbing work but not as a licensed one, it turns out!
Poor Joe, all this attention may mess up his job.
Lesson #1: pose questions honestly to presidential candidates.
Lesson #2: if you are a Republican, try even harder to act on lesson #1
Joe's quote of the day: ''I'm kind of like Britney Spears having a headache. Everybody wants to know about it,'' he joked.
(Yes, Joe, you're just like Spears, except that what's revealed while she works under the sink might look better. AND her whistling while she works would DEFINITELY sound better than you, Joe )
Enjoy your 15 minutes...
October 16, 2008 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of COURSE Joe the Plumber is going to relate to McCain. They BOTH sling shit for a living.
October 16, 2008 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can really tell that Joe teh Plumber is an R-plant. Doncha know that all teh undecided independents have a great hatred of Social Security?
October 16, 2008 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe Joe the Plumber was one of those guys Nixon used, like Donald Segretti the Plumber.
October 16, 2008 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, yes, Segretti, who just happened to be the co-chair of McCain's presidential campaign in Orange County, CA in 2000.
Speaking of plumbers, and terrorist associations, Obama was too cool to engage in the terrorist-baiting, however, McCain's own unrepentant terrorist associate is none other than convicted felon G. Gordon Liddy.
October 16, 2008 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Both Atwater and Rove apprenticed under Segretti.
October 16, 2008 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
how is he a 'plant'???
obama was campaigning in his neighborhood so he asked obama some 'tough questions'/republican talking points.
he isn't a plant, he's just a disingenuous mccain supporter who is as ignorant as mccain about obama's tax and health care plans.
October 16, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Belligerant Ignorance + Hateful Lying = Republican.
October 16, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess 'useful idiot' would have been more on the mark. My skepticism is regarding the presentation of this guy as an undecided average middle-American.
October 16, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
When "Joe the Plumber" was confronted with the fact that he's unlicensed -- in violation of law -- he responded, in effort to intimidate, that the questioner was "messing with" his income.
Being Republican, he isn't concerned with his "messing with" the rule of law.
October 17, 2008 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would Republicans go to all the trouble of putting a plant at an Obama rally just to set up an attack for McCain?
Hehe I jest, of course they would.
October 16, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just wish Obama had mentioned that Joe Plumber would be a patriot if he was willing to pay his fair share of Dubya's deficit off with his $250,000 in gross profit.
October 16, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or if that doesn't ring well, just a simple "if you are making $250,000 in profit after all busineess expenses Joe, you're doing pretty well and you shouldn't be as worried about a tax increase as much as your employees should be. Under my plan your employees get the tax break.
October 16, 2008 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
yes. much better.
October 16, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeh, so bite me Joe. Go and vote for the old fart. You deserve each other. Now run along and go suck sewage.
October 16, 2008 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's MORE breaking info on this phony.
Apparently he:
1. has an outstanding tax lien of nearly $1200.
2. Has a BROTHER who lives in - wait for it - Wasilla, AK!!!!!
http://theobfuscationreport.blogspot.com/2008/10/joe-plumber-nope-joe-tax-dodger.html
October 16, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
HEY! I'm an electrician, what am I, chopped liver????
October 16, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, I've been waiting for the Electrician, or someone like him!
October 16, 2008 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
How Can Joe-the-Plumber be in Two Places at Once When He's Not Anywhere at All?
October 16, 2008 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
You sound like a graduate of More Science High...
October 16, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nope: Communist Martyr's.
October 17, 2008 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
c4,
if you really do need an electrician, DO NOT call any you find in the Yellow Pages that use full page ads.
October 16, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
HaHa. Not THAT kind of electrician. THE Electrician, the one who takes care of the Terminal Bus!
October 16, 2008 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
c4,
your bus is dying?
October 17, 2008 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I Think SOME of Us are All Bozos on This Bus.
October 17, 2008 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
"1. has an outstanding tax lien of nearly $1200.
2. Has a BROTHER who lives in - wait for it - Wasilla, AK!!!!!"
Just a coincidence gosh darnit.
LOL. : )
October 16, 2008 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Joe the Plumber Admits Ulterior Motive in Backing McCain
http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=4039
October 16, 2008 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Joe-the-Plumber.html
Joe is an unlicensed plumber.
October 16, 2008 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. And he was represented, even by himself, as wanting to buy the business -- as if he's all ready to do so, but may be hesitant because of Obama's tax plan.
Turns out he isn't even PREPARED to buy the business with, like, a business plan, let alone with the money.
The most of it: he and the owner have "talked about" the owner giving up the buisness "someday".
If he gets to take over the business, will be blame the Democrats when his lack of planning and foresight result in failure?
October 16, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
he doesn't even have a plumber's license to be able to do plumbing work on his own let alone be the contractor/owner.
the guy isn't a plumber. he's a laborer who works for a guy who might be a plumber.
October 16, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe next they will go to the airport and talk to a baggage handler who's dream to become a pilot is deferred, because he can't afford to buy the airline under Obama's tax plan.
October 16, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dave,
HAHAHAHAHA. :-)
October 17, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just a hunch, but I'll bet the McCain camp's response to this will be, 'He doesn't have a license because of the huge government bureaucracy.'
October 16, 2008 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
No one seems to have considered that Joe the Plumber may be confusing gross revenues with taxable income. Since the average licensed plumber in the U.S. makes less than $60,000, it's possible that a plumber could gross $300,000 before expenses of operation (salaries, supplies, travel, etc.)
I saw the comments above about Joe's Republican connections, and also about his outstanding tax lien. It's possible he is not confusing gross revenue with taxable income, but is deliberately obscuring the difference.
--Dean L. Surkin
October 16, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink