The Looking Glass

Will the Real Joe Plumber Please Stand Up?

According to the Washington Post Senator John McCain said the word Joe 23 times in his speech. Am I a silly Obama supporter or was McCain’s reference to Joe the Plumber a waste of time? McCain brought to the debate a story of a man (Joe) who approached Obama and asked him about his economic plan. Obama during the debate stated that 95% of citizens making less than $250,000 a year would be subject to a tax break when he becomes president. Joe approached Barack about his plan not giving him a break since he made more than that amount. The argument being that Joe (in pursuit of the American Dream,) after becoming an owner instead of just a worker would be punished to a point that he may have a tough time keeping his business afloat. What is McCain’s tactic then? Is he hinting at Obama excluding those that have become successful after being part of the tax break? McCain’s campaign could have been reaching for those chasing the American Dream. He also could’ve been trying to swing the voters that are not covered in either his economic plan or Obama’s by saying Obama’s plan definitely doesn’t include these voters. Overall Joe has received a quick ticket to fame and for no reason other than McCain mentioning him over and over again. Watching the debate I felt more annoyed than anything else. I understand that he wanted to get the point across and perhaps the fact that I was annoyed is saying that I thought about it after the debate. Unfortunately I’d say my thoughts about it were more of a reminder of why I’m not voting for McCain.
“I’m not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.” Perhaps McCain’s best and most influential quote of the night. The Washington Post suggests that it was probably scripted but agreed as to its importance. “George Stephanopoulos from ABC News said in his postscript that McCain should’ve used it in his first debate” (Shales.) Since McCain is part of the same political party as Bush, people can generalize about his sharing of beliefs. Being grouped with Bush has been one of McCain’s problems since the beginning of his campaign and thus I agree with Stephanopoulos this should’ve been established a long time ago. As a former citizen of Arizona I know that McCain is for the most part the maverick he claims to be, however I think he should’ve stated this more plainly throughout the election as he did in this debate. He should’ve connected being a maverick with being anti Bush to begin with. Obama’s response was rather quick as he stated that 80 % of the time McCain voted for Bush’s economic policies. This stat emphasizes McCain agreeing with Bush’s economic plans (which may have lead us to the first depression since 1929.)
To combat this McCain talked about his desire to rid the United States of deficit spending. In an ideal world the U.S. wouldn’t be in trillions of dollars in debt, but for a president to say that is bold. There aren’t many ways to do something like that. One of the main options for reducing deficit spending is raising taxes. However McCain w5ants to cut taxes not increase them. Will cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% boost business enough to make more money off of this? Or perhaps here McCain is returning to his theme of being the fair presidential candidate, the candidate who will stand for the rights of Joe the Plumber. One couldn’t help but notice how often Obama just smirked with disbelief at the statements about not only Joe the Plumber but many other points McCain brought up. The Washington Post wrote that the reactions “diminish the charges” made by McCain, especially when he was on the attack.
One of the tense moments in the speech came when Bob Schieffer asked a question to the candidates regarding their use of negative ads, asking if they would say these things to the face of the opposing candidate. Neither of them said the exact words nor did they say that they really supported the specific term used. Instead they kind of described how the opposite candidate could be described as the specific term. For instance, McCain’s argument that early in the presidential race Obama agreed to ten town hall meetings. However they only had one debate that was a town hall style and not one of the ten town hall meetings were held. McCain was poking at Obama’s character and trying to point out how he could be considered a liar in this instance. The Washington Post brought up a good point here, “There was an obvious irony in that [McCain bring up Obama not participating in the 10 town hall meetings,] since McCain's performance at the one debate with a town-meeting format was among his poorest.” During this question Obama also stated that all of McCain’s campaign advertisements have been negative and said that 2/3s of the population believes McCain’s campaign to be more negative based.
Schieffer’s second most interesting question in my opinion was the question, “Why would the country be better off if your running mate became president rather than his running mate.” Obama stressed (again) that him and Biden share core values, as they differ on a few things the basic principles Obama believes and the direction he wants to take the country Biden agrees with. Here McCain made a bit of a mistake by saying Palin is a woman’s role model. In the theatre I viewed this in the crowd erupted into laughter. Call me a liberal but it’s hard to believe Palin is the symbol women are looking for and it was one of the few slip ups the candidates have had when it comes to referring to a minority such as women or African Americans (two of the minorities involved in this year’s race.) When Obama was asked if he thought Palin was qualified, he dodged the question, a good idea according to The Washington Post as they deemed that particular topic as unwinnable. The fact is the race may be more about these minorities than the public would like to admit but the candidates know that talking about it would jeopardize their place in the campaigns right now. If a swing voter hears a comment that they could take offense to could sway them to the other side. This is one of the view things I think could still gain or lose votes for candidates (shooting themselves in the foot.)
Overall I believe that neither candidate really won the debate. McCain made it clear he was not Bush and made a few good points but as The Washington Post puts it, “too little, too late.” Obama didn’t make any great strides either but he didn’t do anything stupid, and with a lead in the polls doing nothing is doing something. The final few weeks will be interesting to watch but Republican’s can’t be thinking that Joe the Plumber was the answer to the prayers.


Works Cited
Shales, Tom. "Candidates Make A Name for This Guy Joe." The Washington Post 16 Oct 2008
C01. 20 Oct 2008 .

posted by Joshua Peterson @ 7:09 PM