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Posted Friday, October 17, 2008 10:20 PM

Joe the Plumber, Call Your Agent

Newsweek
By Pat Wingert and Mark Hosenball

Joe the Plumber, whose on-the-street questioning of Barack Obama’s tax cuts made him a cult hero in conservative circles and the star of the third presidential debate, has decided to take full advantage of his fifteen minutes of fame, staffers working for John McCain discovered this week. The campaign extended a special invitation to Joe, whose real name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, to attend John McCain’s campaign rally in Wurzelbacher’s hometown of Toledo on Sunday afternoon, but were told that Joe had other plans. It turns out that Wurzelbacher, his teenage son and his father decided to accept an invitation from Fox TV to fly to New York City so Joe could tape a sit-down interview with former Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee, host of a new Saturday evening talk show, as well as Sunday and Monday segments for the networks’ early morning Fox and Friends show. Asked about the snub, the McCain campaign said Wurzelbacher told them he would be “out of town.” Calls to Wurzelbacher were not returned.

Wurzelbacher became a media star after a chance encounter with Obama Oct. 12 during an impromptu campaign stop the Democratic presidential nominee made in the plumber’s middle class suburban neighborhood. As Obama worked the crowd with a pool camera rolling, the 34-year-old Wurzelbacher engaged the candidate to ask whether his taxes would go up, if the plumbing business he hoped to buy generated income of more than $250,000. When Obama answered that his plan called for tax cuts for the more than 90 percent of Americans who make less than that figure, and that he thought it better to “spread the wealth around,” the McCain campaign and conservative pundits zeroed right in on that turn of phrase.

During the final presidential debate Wednesday night, McCain took up Wurzelbacher’s case, arguing to Obama that Joe “wanted to buy the business, but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes” just as he was reaching what McCain called “the American Dream.” During the rest of the debate, “Joe the Plumber” was mentioned more than two dozen times as the candidates argued over whose programs would better help the middle class.

McCain praised Wurzelbacher as the “real winner” of the debate, but the Toledo man might not be so quick to agree. Reporters working on profiles soon discovered that Wurzelbacher didn’t actually have a state or local license to work as a plumber in the Toledo area, and despite Wurzelbacher’s insistence that he didn’t need one, local officials and building inspectors in Toledo insisted he did. On Friday, those officials said a letter was being mailed to Wurzelbacher’s employer warning him to get into compliance with city codes or face the loss of the company’s license. The twice-divorced single father also admitted in interviews that his present income was “not even close” to the $250,000 he was asking Obama about (Wurzelbacher was making $40,000 a year in 2006, divorce papers indicate), and doesn’t have an immediate plan or the means to buy the plumbing business he currently works for, although he hoped to some day. A quick review of public records also revealed that the man who expressed worry about future taxes owed back taxes to the state of Ohio and had his wages garnished recently for not paying a hospital bill.

Wurzelbacher also discovered how easy it is to make a verbal misstep. While taping an interview with CBS Evening News with anchor Katie Couric on Thursday, Wurzelbacher said he decided to question Obama about his tax plan because he wanted to get a straight answer from the candidate, but that the candidate’s “tap dance” was “almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr.”, which many commentators on the left took as evidence of, at the least, poor taste.

—With Mary Chapman in Toledo
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Member Comments

Posted By: Omaar (October 22, 2008 at 12:13 AM)

Confirm Bulletin

Here is the display of your bulletin. Click the button below to confirm and post.

Russia Rejects McCain Money Request to his Campaign  

http://crooksandliars. com/category/john-mccain

So much for McCain an his [ Anti- Socialist Sentiments]

Is'nt McCain-Palin wanting to make War Against Russia ?

McCain Anti Russia

McCain Letter Asks Russian Envoy For Money

By Cernig Tuesday Oct 21, 2008 7:00am

[Is'nt McCain an Anti-Socialist] Hahahahaha !!!

Boy oh Boy...

McCain is throwing Everything but the Toilet Plunger at Barack Obama !!!

As McCain's henchman Rick Davis was trying to label as "Secret Donations" amounts that are under the disclosure limits of the bill McCain himself wrote on campaign finance, and suggesting that Obama is taking in illegal foreign donations...

... the worst-run presidential campaign in history was rolling into another blunder.

John McCain's presidential election campaign has solicited a financial contribution from an unlikely source -- Russia's U.N. envoy -- but a McCain spokesman said on Monday it was a mistake.

In the letter, McCain urged Russia's U.N. Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, to contribute anywhere from $35 (20 pounds) to $5,000 (2,912 pounds) to help ensure McCain's victory over Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama, currently ahead in voter preference polls. "If I have the honour of continuing to serve you, I make you this promise: We will always put America -- her strength, her ideals, her future -- before every other consideration," McCain assured Churkin.

Moscow's mission to the United Nations issued a terse statement on the Republican presidential candidate's letter, saying that the Russian government and its officials "do not finance political activity in foreign countries.

"

Yes, it was almost certainly a database error, and more than a few people as finding it amusing as hell. But it also undermines the McCain campaign's narrative in the most embarassing way.

It also leaves some questions open.

The FEC's notes on public financing say:

A major party nominee who has accepted public funding for the general election may not accept any contributions to further his election. You may, however, help a publicly funded nominee by contributing to the candidate's compliance fund. A compliance fund is a special account maintained by publicly funded nominees solely for paying legal and accounting expenses incurred in complying with the campaign finance law. You may contribute up to $2,300 to the compliance fund of a major party nominee.

$5,000 dollars is over the limit set for the FEC.

The campaign still was sending out to ask for money even though it has accepted public finance so was it clearly asking for a contribution to the compliance fund?

Time for an FEC audit of McCain's finances. That's what FOX and the rest would be baying for if this was an Obama campaign letter.

Report Abuse
Posted By: Clatech (October 21, 2008 at 8:09 AM)

The way the liberal media went after Joe Wurzelbacher is a good indication of what average Americans have to look forward to in a Barrack Obama administration (God forbid). Access will be based on positive contributions to the Obama persona and Hollywood status!

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Posted By: Concerned Canadian (October 19, 2008 at 12:26 PM)

BREAKING NEWS ALERT...

ACORN HAS OSAMA BIN LADEN REGISTERED AS A DEMOCRAT CLAIMING THAT TERRORIST FRIENDS OF OBAMA HAVE A RIGHT TO VOTE TOO !!

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