I Am Not Joe the Plumber

 I was pretty undecided until last night’s third presidential debate.  McCain had me going for the first 20-30 minutes.  I actually stopped to listen to what he was saying.  Most times I turn down the sound and just watch his body language.  Senator McCain started off with, “Americans are hurting right now, and they’re angry. They’re hurting, and they’re angry. They’re innocent victims of greed and excess on Wall Street and as well as Washington, D.C. And they’re angry, and they have every reason to be angry.”  I thought he finally gets it!  Let me hear more.  But then he said the same thing he’s been saying, “…The catalyst for this housing crisis was the Fannie and Freddie Mae that caused subprime lending situation that now caused the housing market in America to collapse…. It doesn’t help that person in their home if the next door neighbor’s house is abandoned. And so we’ve got to reverse this. We ought to put the homeowners first.”  I though well, OK!  I don’t want my property value to go down.  I want to be to get out of the house what I put in.  Boy John, may I call you John?  I think you are finally relating.

Senator Obama was next with some good points. “….Number one, let’s focus on jobs. I want to end the tax breaks for companies that are shipping jobs overseas and provide a tax credit for every company that’s creating a job right here in America.”  Right, I tried not to buy anything made in China.  That didn’t last the shopping trip.  Even the can of organic soy beans was a product of China.  I use to hear commercials, “Made in America,” not anymore.

“Number two, let’s help families right away by providing them a tax cut — a middle-class tax cut for people making less than $200,000, and let’s allow them to access their IRA accounts without penalty if they’re experiencing a crisis.”   I’m middle class. That means I get smooched between the lower class and the upper class like the filling in a sandwich. I needed money from my IRA and got taxed more than Bill Gates.

“Now Senator McCain and I agree with your idea that we’ve got to help homeowners. That’s why we included in the financial package a proposal to get homeowners in a position where they can renegotiate their mortgages.”  Yes help me!  Chase Finance could care less.  I felt like this was going to be a good debate.  The candidates were really going to get to the issues that troubled me.  Yes, I was selfish.  I was thinking about myself, not my neighbor.

The debate was moving along nicely.  Senator McCain seemed calm, and even made eye contact with Senator Obama.  What came next started the avalanche, landslide, disaster, etc.  MCCAIN: “No. I would like to mention that a couple days ago Senator Obama was out in Ohio and he had an encounter with a guy who’s a plumber, his name is Joe Wurzelbacher, (pronounced whur-zell-BAHK-er).  McCain pronounced the man’s name wrong.  That was the beginning of the end for John and me.  I felt like Senator McCain has trouble relating to more than one person at a time.  I am not sure who he related to in the first debate, neither Obama nor the moderator.  The second debate, he seemed to get personal only with another military guy.  Now McCain is relating to Joe the plumber.  Both McCain and Obama repeated Joe more than 25 times during the 90-minute debate. Iraq came up six times. Economy used sixteen times.  I am not Joe the plumber, Joe six-pack or a hockey mom.

MCCAIN: Well, if you’ll turn on the television, as I — I watched the Arizona Cardinals defeat the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday.  What?  Who cares?  Get to the point.  “….Senator Obama is spending unprecedented — unprecedented in the history of American politics, going back to the beginning, amounts of money in negative attack ads on me.”  Where has McCain been?  The whole campaign has been negative.  Sarah Palin call Obama a “domestic terrorist”.  The shout of “kill him” followed a Sarah Palin rant on Obama’s relationship with radical Chicagoan Bill Ayers.  I don’t believe Palin acted without McCain knowing.  McCain is upset about what Congressman Lewis said.  Go talk with Congressman Lewis.  He’s not at this debate.  It was pretty much all over when the two Senators got to Mr. Ayers, negative remarks at rallies and Acorn.  Acorn? What is that? 

McCain was back to his angry, ranting self.

He lost his focus.  Mc Cain is on video looking like a deer in headlights.  He lost the big Ayers bang when Obama said with whom he associated.  Obama was eight years old when Ayers now a college professor was a “terrorist.” That left McCain saying he didn’t care about an “old washed up terrorist.”   Well John, why are you bringing up this stuff if you don’t care about them?  Why couldn’t you stick with the issues?  As president when you get into talks with not so friendly leaders, are you going to look angry and beat around the “bush?”