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If you watched the presidential debate last night, you no doubt heard the many references by John McCain and Barack Obama to "Joe the plumber," which might as well be written Joe the Plumber with a capital P, seeing as that's his official name as far as the media is concerned.
From that moment forward in the debate, McCain and Obama continued to frame their economic arguments in terms of Joe the Plumber. Eventually, Obama was looking straight into the camera and saying, "Joe...", like he was in direct contact with Joe via a video phone.
Moments like this serve as their own punch line. This quickly became goofy, to the point in the debate that when Joe's name came up yet again, I had to announce, "This debate has officially jumped the shark." It was ready-made for mockery. An entire nation of 300 million people had been boiled down to Joe the Plumber. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and "Saturday Night Live" Thursday Edition will all have a field day of it a few hours from now.
I feel sorry for Joe the Plumber, who now will have to field countless interviews until the media gets bored with him. The AP is reporting today that Joe the Plumber doesn't even have a plumbing license. He's apparently a plumber in vocation, just not technically, or something. What does that mean? Who knows, or cares?
The only remaining question: Is Joe the Plubmer the same guy as Joe Six-Pack? For that matter, does Joe Six-Pack really come home and drink six beers? Or does he just reach straight for the Jack Daniels?
New rule (to steal a line from Bill Maher): These random American guys that the candidates are talking to when making their arguments can no longer be named Joe. Average Joe and Regular Joe and Joe Blow have all left the building.
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9 comments on this post
Destructor
What's great is that, even though Joe exists only in McCain's imagination, he's STILL swtiched to Obama!
Sam
He's 34 huh? He looks older. Now I feel old. But is he 3 inches taller than the average North Korean?
Jester
Joe is more America than you know. 1) He lied about his income. 2) He has no prayer of buying the plumbing business where he supposedly works. 3) He isn't even licensed as a plumber. 4) Despite bitching about Obama's tax plans, he owes $1200 in back taxes. 5) He's distantly related to Charles Keating. THAT Charles Keating. You're right. Joe is America.
Jeremy
I like the media onslaught on Joe that's happening now. Don't ever go and ask wierd questions to a presidential candidate! If they mention you at a debate the media will kill you. How did Joe ever get passed the people that screen these people, anyway? Both Obama and McCain have people that you have to get through to talk to them. They wanna make sure crazy's don't get through (Don't want people yelling insane things) and they also want to make sure no questions that the candidate doesn't want to answer. Somebody at Obamas campaign goofed by letting Joe by.
Ed
Obama should have taken a page from the Palin playbook and bitched about Joe's "gotcha" question.
joe wishes you would finish tng review *cries*
Sarah M
It's nice to see McCain and Obama going after the always-underserved Unregistered Voter demographic. I'm sure Joe's moral support to one, or both, of them on election day will mean a lot more than his ballot would have. Is Joe Biden technically Joe Six-Pack? He looks like a beer-drinker. There are only two weeks left, but I'm sure the Democrats will turn this into an ad somehow...
Daniel Lebovic
Hey Jammer, If you don't mind my asking, for whom do you plan on voting? I was heavily leaning toward Obama, but the third debate closed the deal. McCain pandered to and about a citizen whose identity and grievances he possibly knew were ficticious. It's not that he and Palin are dumb, I think; it's that they think the American people (well, those that Sarah Palin considers the "real Americans," anyway, are morons. Joe the Plumber seems to have been vetted even less than Palin was (is this what you call "negative vetting?") Really am looking forward to reading more reviews when you get a chance to write them. I just saw the photos of Star Trek XI in this week's Entertainment Weekly Star Trek article, and so far, I am impressed (of course, it's too early to tell, but when I first saw the "advance" photos of Sybok and Shinzon, I was already worried). Dan
philadlj
Thanks, Jester. You saved me a lot of time. I don't feel sorry for Joe the Plumber.
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