Campaign '08: It's come down to Joe the Plumber vs. George W. Bush

Lately on the campaign trail, it seems like the conversation has come down to a contest between symbols in a battle for votes.

Republican John McCain offers Joe the Plumber, a middle-class man in Ohio (seen above) who recently assailed Democrat Barack Obama for his tax policies. Today Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin invoked Joe Wurzelbacher's cause while stumping in Ohio. In response, supporters chanted, "Joe, Joe, Joe." Meanwhile, as Obama's motorcade traveled to Roanoke, Va. anti-tax protestors lined the route waving -- yep -- plungers.

And then there's Bush.

McCain chided Obama in their final debate the other night, saying  "Senator, if you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

So today Obama conceded that the Arizona senator is not George W. Bush.

"He doesn't look like President Bush," said Obama. "He doesn't have that same Texas accent." And, said Obama, "I don't blame Sen. McCain for all of President Bush's mistakes. After all, he's only voted with George Bush 90% of the time."

The Obama punchline of course is that even though McCain doesn't look or sound like the current president, "it is fair to say that over the course of three debates and 20 months and over the last eight years, Sen. McCain still hasn't offered a single thing that he would do differently from George W. Bush when it comes to the most important economic issues we face today. Not one."

Pick your poster child.

-- Johanna Neuman and Seema Mehta

Photo credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Comments

[Jammie]

It's funny that it turns out that Joe the plumber would actually save $500 in taxes more under Obama's tax plan! This is just another case of the McCain campaign not having their facts straight!

[Rodolfo Acuna]

The Republican Party -- the party that stole the 2000 Floria Election, 2004 Ohio Election and elsewhere-- could not get away with this fraud if the media did not spin the story.
1- Republicans have worked with ACORN; it is a reputable organization
2- Getting signatures right is a widespread problem, i.e., signatures to qualify one for candidacy that often require 30 percent more signatures than required to qualify; signatures for initiatives have a similar problem. If you need 60,000 signatures you have to get at least 70,000.
3- ACORN employs paid volunteers; you are bound to get a greedy one or two -- the good old American profit motive. However, this sort of petty greed is looked at as a conspiracy whereas the greed of corporate executives is ignored. I wonder how many criminal charges will be brought?
4- The deception of individual applicants is like a bad joke. Mickey Mouse, common on. This is not voter fraud; it is a bad prank .
5. The registrars are required to hand in all applications even if they are signed Adolph Hitler.
6. For the person signing multiple applications; how can you blame the registrar? Perhaps the signee should be questioned; were they signed up the same day? during the same hour?
7. The Obama campaign paid ACORN for get out the vote drives not registration; it has its own volunteers.
I am all for investigations if they are equal. Have we prosecuted those perpetrating the frauds in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004?

[scott]

crazy stuff http://www.obamamccainbidenpalin.info

[okeydokey]

I picked my poster child way early on. It's not the same as Bush...It's "that one"

[GHM]

JOE ANOTHER PHONE DEAD WEIGHT

[Dan Conseen]

Assailed? he ask a question to which Mr. Obama told the truth about his vision of this country. a communistic vision.

[Ed Hogan]

Poor Joe the Plumber and Bush the Bumbler...two strikes against McLame and Failin.

And, when COLIN POWELL endorses Obama on a LIVE TV INTERVIEW on Sunday, it'll be STRIKE 3 for grampa and hockey mother/

[Allen]

Obama continues to refer to the 90% figure but fails to acknowledge that the 90% refers to mainly procedural votes. If he were to examine McCain's record on votes that mattered to policy he may find that this figure is highly overexaggerated. But he's not going to now is he? That would lead to the unraveling of the lies that he has spread over the course of this campaign.

Ultimately this campaign boils down to this: Should individuals be responsible for their own actions, and deal with the consequences of their actions or should government pat individuals on the head, and tell them its okay, that you screwed up, we'll make everyone else pay for your mistakes? I lean toward the first option, I vote for McCain.

[drfugawe]

Makes no difference if you're Joe the Plumber, or Maude the senior, if you can't tell which candidate offers YOU the best deal, you are destined to suffer - We are truly a nation of fools!

[DirtyTricks]

BEWARE OF REPUGLICAN PLUMBERS! NIXON USED THEM, TOO!!!

[Anthony]

Well ,nice to see that the Times is still in the bag for Obama. Nice clear explanation what the Bush/McCain punch line means. Now how about why Joe the Plummer is a symbol. You clearly omitted the single most significant thing about this, the words "Spread the Wealth" being Obama's plan.

[George]

Don't forget a few more symbols of this campaign: Palin herself; Bill Ayers; the Hanoi Hilton; and a large grave -- for fair and honest journalism.

[KEVIN]

MY DEMOCRATIC PARTY REALLY BOTCHED THIS ONE, WHY WOULD THEY EVER PUT NOBAMA AS OUR CANDIDATE IS BEYOND ME
ITS GONNA BE A REPUBLICAN LANDSLIDE IN THE POPULAR VOTE AND WHO KNOWS WHAT THE ELECTORATES WILL DO BUT I CAN ONLY SURMISE THEY WILL FOLLOW THE POPULAR VOTE AS WELL
NOBAMA LACKS THE EXPERIENCE OUR COUNTRY NEEDS AT THIS TIME TO BE THE MAN WHICH EVEN HIS OWN VP {BEFORE HE WAS CHOSEN] ADMITS
OUR COUNTRY NEEDS A STRONG MILITARY LEADER AFTER THE GEORGE THE BUMBLER... AND THATS MCCAIN

[fred]

"Ultimately this campaign boils down to this: Should individuals be responsible for their own actions, and deal with the consequences of their actions or should government pat individuals on the head, and tell them its okay, that you screwed up, we'll make everyone else pay for your mistakes?"

you mean like the guys on wallstreet?

[Concerned]

Allen: It wasn't Obama that started this "McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time". It was John McCain. He used this line in the primary to prove that he was conservative enough to be the party's nominee. So don't get on Obama about this- McCain said it, and McCain needs to eat those words until the election.

Here it is on YouTube. He said it on FOX NEWS. Hey, Fair & Balanced, right????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMvohE_otJ4

[Egon Jensen]

On Oct. 28, 1967 the New York Times published an article under the title “Adm. McCain’s Son, Forrestal Survivor, Is Missing in Raid”. This was one day after John McCain’s aircraft was brought down over Hanoi, and he was captured. This article is available on the net http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/politics/20080203_MCCAIN_TIMELINE/content/pdf/19671028.pdf
It makes an interesting reading, perhaps you should read it, too.
The article begins with telling the story of the fire aboard the aircraft carrier Forrestal, July 29, 1967, and the first two sentences are: “It was almost three months ago that the young, prematurely gray Navy pilot was sitting in a villa in Saigon, sipping a Scotch with friends and recalling the holocaust that he had managed to live through. He was John Sydney McCain 3d, a lieutenant commander.”
He is then quoted “now I’ve seen what the bombs and the napalm did to the people on our ship, I’m not so sure I want to drop any more of this stuff on North Vietnam.” The article then continues: “But after a few weeks... Commander McCain headed back to the Gulf of Tonkin to fly his Skyhawk from the deck of the Oriskany on new raids.” Later the article says: “Yesterday, two months after his 30th birthday, Commander McCain was hurled from the steam catapults of the Oriskany... The target was the main power plant in Hanoi”.
The article then quotes a North Vietnamese broadcast, which not only mentions McCain, but also gives details of his capture, mentioning that he was shot in the leg while still in his aircraft and was treated by a nurse for his wounds before being brought into a detention camp. At the end the article mentions that McCain was “described by the Hanoi radio as the son of the commander of United States Naval Forces in Europe.”

John McCain himself tells us in his autobiography Faith of My Fathers (1999), and his story is being repeated over and over again:

- His hair got gray during his detainment because of the torture, he was suffering.
The newspaper article describes him as being “prematurely gray”, several months before his capture.

- It took the Vietnamese several days to find out who his father was.
The article mentions a radio transmission from Hanoi and from the day of McCains’s capture (as the article was published the next day) giving the family background of McCain.

- After his capture he was questioned about which ship he came from and what the target of his mission was, and he was tortured, after refusing to provide this information.
The article mentions the Oriskany as McCain’s ship and the power plant as his target.

Of cause there are no independent sources to provide more information about McCains detainment; neither he himself nor his prison guard Nguyen Tien Tran, who denies any allegations of torture http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/14/uselections2008-johnmccain , are unbiased witnesses. But do you think John McCain is completely truthful?

[Allen]

Fred: Yes. Exactly. The bailout should never have been passed. The banking industry should never have been encouraged to give loans to individuals who could not afford those loans. There is a laundry list of issues with the current collapse that can be blamed on both parties however, making the taxpayer shoulder their mistakes is horrendous. I'm not an economist and I don't have the answer but $700 Billion in taxpayer dollars into the hands of greedy Wall Street execs wasn't the answer.

Concerned: I'm not saying that McCain neccessarily should have used that to justify his campaign in the first place but for Obama to use that to make McCain into " the third Bush" isn't acceptable either. Neither man is perfect and both have obscured the facts but it seems to me that Obama would prefer to assume that people don't understand what Obama really stands for. He offers hope yes, but false hope it will be. One doesn't simply waltz into the White House and undo 8 years worth of policy. He's naive and dangerous.

[lee L]

"Sen. Obama said that he wants to spread the wealth and he wants government to take your money and decide how to best to redistribute it according to his priorities,” Palin ..... SOCIALISM....MY GOD HOW TERRIBLE THIS IS TO REDISTRIBUTE THE WEALTH... WHAT DID GEORGE BUSH AND MCCAIN DO WHEN THEY GAVE THE HUGE TAX BREAKS TO THE WEALTHIEST AMONG US... I FOR ONE SAY LET'S GIVE THE LITTLE GUY SOME OF IT BACK .. WHEN I EARNED THAT KIND OF MONEY I WONDERED WHY I STOPPED PAYING SOCIAL SECURITY TAX AFTER 95K ... I WONDERED WHY IT'S ALWAYS THE POOR FOLKS GETTING SCREWED... WE DON'T NEED MORE OF THESE PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENT... WE NEED A CHANGE..ELECT OBAMA/BIDEN REPUBLICANS REDISTRIBUTE THE WEALTH ALL RIGHT AMONG THEIR FRIENDS THE ALREADY RICH..

[No Communist President]

The Republicans did not have to steal any election! In 2000, Gore COULD NOT EVEN WIN HIS HOME STATE of Tennessee!!

That's after he served as VP for 8 years and as a multi-term senator from Tennessee. And let's not forget Al's father, Al Gore Sr., who was also a multi-term senator representing Tennessee!!

Spare me the lame talking points about how people were disenfranchised in Florida in 2000. No one has come up with a single LEGIT example of this happening. When it comes to names, addresses and details, the lame argument of the GOP stealing the election falls apart.

This is projection, on the part of the Obamasiah butt kissers who will rationalize anything if it justifes their communist president getting the white house.

[no nonsense]

Barack Hussein Obama
He is not a muslim but his name looks like one
He is not An Arab but heis name looks like one
He is not a radical but he has a friend who is a radical
He is not a terrorist but he has a friend who is a PLO member
He may become a US president, is Haloween posponed until January?

[no nonsense]

COLIN POWELL? Colin who?

[tod]

The real mcCain
http://therealmccain.com/

JOHN MCCAIN LIES ABOUT HIS VOTING RECORD FOR THE 7TH TIME
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=6jeJbVqL3a8&NR=1

[serious voter]

In 1975, after the Vietnam war was ended, Biden puclicly asked the US government to stop the South Vietnamese from coming to the U.S. These South Vietnamese had fought with the Americans against the communists until their government collapsed in 1975. Many Vietnamese Americans don't have any respect for him, they thought he would have a very low IQ, unlike Ford or Reagan!

[no nonsense]

Biden is a boring guy, it looks like he is ready for a vacation or a nap. Obama keeps linking McCain to Bush. Does this mean he will do a good job?I am not sure about this because his performance is still a secret. Voters should not be fooled by him.

[Tom]

John McCain may have voted the same way as George Bush a lot of times, but what were those votes? Were the alternative options bad for America? We don't have enough facts to say that voting the same way as Bush is a bad thing. Besides, the biggest problem with Bush is what he does without seeking any approval or votes. He's like a dictator and that's where his actions have really been reprehensible, his unilateral decisions. John McCain is not George Bush.