My LTTE to the Orlando Sentinel: "Plumber" Joe is a Republican Plant.

[ddeclue]

Dear Editors:

"Plumber" Joe is a Republican Plant.

He's been put there to give a face and a name (however fictionalized) to right wing talking points.

He's the "Harry and Louise" of this campaign trying to convince people to vote against their best interests by looking something like a middle class voter but certainly NOT doing what is in a middle class voter's interest.

It's the Republican propaganda technique made famous by the movie "Wag the Dog":

Create an interesting character and narrative, create a lot of buzz about it and there will be a lot of uncritical thinkers that will go along with it no matter what the consequences are to themselves or how irrational the story sounds.

Time for a reality check:

How many plumbers make $250,000/year? Very few - Almost certainly near zero.

I know very few doctors and lawyers that make this kind of money. I'm a degreed engineer and computer programmer and I don't even come close to this kind of money.

The Republicans are trying to use "Joe" to confuse voters into conflating a business' gross sales with a individual's personal income.

The truth is that when a business pays an employee a salary, that money comes out of their bottom line - it is an expense so it never is part of the business' income in the first place to be taxed.

The government does NOT tax businesses on their gross sales - it taxes them on the INCOME which is the difference between the gross sales minus the expenses of the business - property lease, equipment, utility bills, salaries, office supplies are all EXPENSES that are deducted from the gross sales in order to arrive at taxable income.

Joe is clearly a Republican "Wag the Dog" Plant:

- He's so obviously been well prepped for talking on TV with the Republican talking points

- He was all too easy for the press to find and interview immediately.

- He's NOT what he says he is - a licensed plumber.

- He doesn't make anywhere near the amount of money he talked about and really has no prospect of doing so by buying Newell Plumbing in Toledo Ohio.

- His past coincindentally leads him to both Phoenix Arizona and Alaska from which both McCain and Palin hail.

- Type in Wurzelbacher into the FEC.gov website and EVERY single donation that pops out is to a Republican and there are tens of thousands of dollars donated.

- Type in Wurzelbacher into the Ohio Secretary of State Division of Elections website and EVERY single donation that pops out is to a Republican and there are tens of thousands of dollars donated.

- Robert Wurzelbacher, Jr. was the son-in-law of Charles Keating who was the mastermind of the banking fraud scheme that John McCain was reprimanded by the Senate for.

Does anyone think for a moment that these two Wurzelbachers are not related? Talk about your incredible coincidences... NOTE TO REPUBLICAN MASTERMINDS: At LEAST do us the favor of using someone named John Smith next time and don't insult our intelligence.

- Finally, although it is not indicative of anything, I find it quite ironic that when he lived in Arizona, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher lived at 1960 Keating Avenue in Mesa AZ according to zabasearch.com - the street is named after Charles Keating of Keating Five fame.

Voters - Do you want to be bamboozled by the Republican propaganda machine again? Or do you want good jobs, affordable health care, a college education for your kids and responsible competent people leading the government?

The choice is yours this November.

Respectfully,

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[progdonkey]

1. re: Keating connection...

Keith Olbermann said (in passing) that they weren't related--that "Wurzelbacher" actually is like "Smith" in that part of Ohio, apparently.

Of course, Keith could be wrong, but I trust his information.

He made the point, though, that even though they're not from the same family of Wurzelbachers, the mere fact that you can Google his name and up comes a member of the Keating family and participant in Keating Five scandal is just more proof at how incompetent McCain and his team are. They didn't vet Palin at all, and they clearly didn't vet Sam the Wealthy Entrepreneur... I mean, "Joe the Plumber," before McCain decided to make him the centerpiece of his final debate performance.

[ddeclue]

4. I'm not generally given to conspiracy theories but..

it boggles the imagination that this guy's name is Wurzelbacher and there Keating's son in law (who went to prison) was also a Wurzelbacher. This requires some investigation to find out who this guy's family members are before I'm going to just accept it as coinky-dink.

Doug D.

[progdonkey]

9. though, here's a case in point...

I live in Charlottesville, VA, and in this part of Virginia, nearly every third person you meet has the last name "Shifflet." It's just an extremely common last name here; I know there's supposed to be some historical reason (i.e. not just being one huge extended family), but I forget what it is.

I'm sure Wurzelbacher is just as unusual (or at least not as omnipresent) to people outside that area of Ohio as Shifflet is to people outside this part of Virginia.

Maybe they are related, but there's no reason to jump ahead when it could be just like I'm saying here: a regionally common name. Especially when there is still an avenue of criticism regarding his name: that people would think he was related to a Keating family member and that that should've made the McCain people say, "Thanks, but no thanks," to using him as an icon. Like, if there were a plumber from, say, North Carolina with the last name Keating--he may not be related to Charles Keating, but don't fucking use him!! ;-)

[ddeclue]

17. Come on.. the guy's story doesn't add up..

He's NOT a licensed plumber.

He CAN'T do what he said he was going to do which is buy Newell Plumbing.

Newell Plumbing would NOT generate $250k of revenue as a two man operation.

and the guy's story is conveniently contrived to attack Obama's tax plan by making the claim that he's "afraid of Obama raising taxes".

Do you have to be hit over the head with a two by four to see the light?

Don't spend all your time focusing on the connection issue unless you can actually follow the trail in Ohio. Look at the BIG picture and who benefits by this "random" media event. The world of politics is simply NOT that random.

Doug D.

[progdonkey]

20. woah, you're totally misunderstanding my point...

I'm only talking about the "related to a member of the Lincoln S&L" aspect of this.

I never said he was a licensed plumber or that there shouldn't be questions about just where the hell he came from.

I'm trying to help you sharpen the attacks: including something that is easily dismissed like the "he's got the same--regionally common--last name as a bad guy" just makes it easy for defenders to focus on that and dismiss the entire attack. The guy's a registered Republican named Sam who wants to buy a business for $250,000--"Joe the Plumber, representative of the common undecided voter", he is not.

[ddeclue]

21. No I think that is a problem for the REPUBLICANs to debunk...

You are too busy practicing law instead of politics.

This guy has a whole series of less than honest points to his little story, he's NOT a plumber, NOT an independent, CAN'T buy the business, DOES NOT and WILL NOT make 250K as a plumber - he's shown enough of a pattern of dishonesty that it's HIS problem to show me he isn't related.

Doug D.

[progdonkey]

23. why not throw in that he molests children, too?

Make the Republicans debunk it. That's all that matters, and it absolutely won't harm the credibility of the factual charges. :eyes:

[anigbrowl]

2. Good luck. I think it's too long to print

but I don't know about the Orlando Sentinel. Most newspapers prefer letters that are under 300 words. Maybe it would be better to actually fill it out a bit further (but check your facts extra carefully on the Keating relationship), call up the Features Editor at the paper, and offer an op-ed. Most editors are usually desperate to fill the 'news hole' and will jump at well-written content.

[ddeclue]

5. I sent it to both...

I've been published as both LTTE and Op-Ed before but it is very hard and the paper is slanted Republican so I don't really expect to be printed. My main idea is to keep bombarding them with a reasonably articulate liberal POV - when they get a lot of letters on a subject they tend to pick one to print.

Doug D.

[anigbrowl]

22. Cool

Bear in mind that even a conservative paper won't necessarily mind printing a liberal op-ed, since controversy is good for business. Lots of people (including myself) like to get worked up over something...I'm a faithful Michelle Malkin reader, for example. I think it's the intellectual equivalent of bulimia...

[sixmile]

3. Great job

Good luck getting it in print up there in the bible belt.
I can imagine many McSame signs around your area. Am i right?

[ddeclue]

7. Actually not...Florida is +5 for Obama this cycle

1) I'm in Fort Lauderdale now which you can think of as "Long Island South".

2) I go back to Orlando on the weekends where my house is (my job is down in Ft. Lauderdale) and even up there we outnumber the Repugnicans in Orange County and now in Congressional District 8 and they are pretty demoralized. I've seen a lot more Obama than McCain even up there.

Doug D.

[sixmile]

12. I'm also in Ft. Lauderdale

I went by the Obama campaign headquarters on Sistrunk this a.m. to get some yard signs. I had to pay for them! I'm not cheap but during '04 we had Kerry signs aplenty.

Nice to talk to a fellow South Floridian.

[Holly_Hobby]

6. How did Obama pick the correct place to door knock? n/t

[ddeclue]

8. Watch the ACTUAL video...

he DID NOT knock on this guy's door.. this guy walked up to him while he was crowd surfing in a neighborhood. It could easily be that the Repugnicans have a mole or some other way of knowing Obama's schedule for the day and just took advantage of the available local resources.

[Holly_Hobby]

10. Oh, I see n/t

[sandnsea]

11. Where's your evidence that he's a plant?

You can make your point much better if you stick to facts that are proven.

[sixmile]

13. Maybe not a plant, but a TOOL

Joe the "plumber" is neither.
Apparently he may not be able to vote in Ohio, either.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/16/plumber-vote/
How ironic.

[sandnsea]

15. A fool and a tool

But there's really no reason to think he's a plant at this point.

[ddeclue]

19. That's another KEY point: the guy CLEARLY lied about being an undecided independent.

He's a REPUBLICAN registered for 14 years in OH.

Sandnsea: This guy is trying to hide his identity as a Republican and pretend to be something he is not which is a clear sign that this isn't just some random occurrence - the guy has a guilty mind about it.

[ddeclue]

14. This is NOT a court of law and I don't need to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

a preponderance of the evidence will do for this purpose and I've satisfied that standard.

Doug D.

[sandnsea]

16. I thought you wanted undecideds to take you seriously

my bad.

[ddeclue]

18. and I thought you had common sense...my bad...

You don't have to prove everything to a criminal courtroom standard in the real world of politics because that level of evidence is simply NOT available in real time and the other side is EXPECTING progressives to bog down on proving things to the nth degree instead of calling it for what it is and taking it on. You are over analyzing and demanding ridiculous levels of proof.

Doug D.

[crossroads]

24. Well said! k&r

[unblock]

25. he's not a PLANT. he's a partisan opportunist who took his chance to ask obama a toughie

from what i understand, obama just showed up on some street and this guy happened to live there. that's a tough way to go about "planting" someone. that said, if mclame showed up on YOUR street taking questions, wouldn't you try to think of a toughie to ask him, especially in front of the media?

what happened THEN was that the republicans saw this as something they could make hay out of and they started promoting the hell out of this guy. i suppose they might have even prepped him for interviews, given him talking points, etc. but that would have been AFTER the initial encounter with obama.