SUBSCRIBE NOW WELCOME BACK. Do you want to continue reading where you left off? New Republic subscribers can pick up where they left off no matter which device they were previously using. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Go Home Your Morning Cup Of Joe

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Your Morning Cup Of Joe

BY EVE FAIRBANKS

A new call for video submissions from the McCain campaign, flagged by reader DW:

How are you Joe the Plumber?   Tell us in 30 seconds ... In these tough economic times, there is no doubt that John
McCain and Sarah Palin stand firmly on the side of hardworking
"everyday Joes" who understand the value of honest work and the
American Dream. That's why we
want to hear from you and share your story with the American public.
It's simple ... make an ad telling us why you are "Joe the Plumber" in
30 seconds and your video could end up on the air as a TV ad....

Ideas and Suggestions:

  • Be creative! The video that most effectively tells why you are Joe the Plumber will be featured in a TV ad.
  • Tell us why you are like Joe the Plumber.
  • How would Barack Obama's plan to "Spread the Wealth Around" hurt you?

Note, too, the new "McCain/Joe" red logo, designed to look like a plumber uniform's name patch.

-- Eve Fairbanks

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Show all 17 comments

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

17 comments

News Flash: Joe Lieberman "Disappointed, Upset" At Loss of Title of McCain Campaign's "Favorite Joe"

- rozenson

October 20, 2008 at 12:28pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

There will be a widely viewed, transgressive web video called "Two Joes, One Cup"

- miceelf

October 20, 2008 at 12:31pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

First we were all Georgians, now we're all plumbers.  Oh, I wonder what game will come next here at the McCain/Palin day camp!  Can we be Vikings next?  Can we?  I wanna be a Viking!

- adaglas

October 20, 2008 at 12:45pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

This should be interesting. Exactly how will lower taxes on the middle class hurt working Americans?

I know it's been a crazy election season these last two years -- and thanks, George W. Bush, for keeping a non-successor in the VP's mansion so that we would have a full two years of campaigning to replace you -- but have we really reached the point where the Republican candidate is openly campaigning against the Democrat for wanting to cut taxes too much?

You can go online and find tax-plan comparisons, but for most families, Obama's tax cut is almost double McCain's. And while John McCain wants to impose an extra thousand bucks of taxes on families like mine, John McCain's tax plan would cut his own taxes by approximately $125,000 per year. I wish the Obama campaign had made an issue of how McCain's plan affects McCain's family personally, since it would have put the lie both to McCain's posing as a middle-class tax-cutter as well as to his "Country First" schtick. Leaving ordinary families with an extra thousand dollars on their tax bill to finance hundred-grand tax breaks for yourself is pretty much the opposite of putting your country first.

Please, please, if you know anyone who shows signs of buying the GOP's bullshit on taxes, point out to them this disparity: John McCain wants their taxes to be about a thousand bucks higher than Barack Obama's plan, while McCain wants to cut his own family's taxes more than a hundred grand per year. Repeat: A thousand bucks in higher taxes for you, a hundred grand in cash for John McCain. That's the McCain plan.

- rhubarbs

October 20, 2008 at 1:10pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Obama should set up a similar project, and let all of the Joe the plumbers who realize that Sam the plumber is full of shit explain how his views are hurting everyone.

- anonevent

October 20, 2008 at 1:17pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

adaglas, to be a viking you have to be a real man. A manly man, like Joe the plumber or McCain or Sarah Palin.

- blackton

October 20, 2008 at 1:18pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Miceelf: you have scarred my mind irreverisbly.

- rozenson

October 20, 2008 at 1:23pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

really miceelf? really?

- Maxblum13

October 20, 2008 at 1:32pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

You'll eat those words, blackton, when I'm pillaging your land and raping your livestock.  They don't call me Adaglas the Ferocious of Lodense for nothing, bub.

- adaglas

October 20, 2008 at 1:45pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Rozenson, I am the Viking of your mind!!! Bwahaha!!

Maxblum13: Yes. yes.

- miceelf

October 20, 2008 at 1:56pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"How would Barack Obama's plan to 'Spread the Wealth Around' hurt you?"

Do these people live in an alternative universe?  Are they stupid, deluded, or as more likely, just plain dishonest?  Where is this soclialist workers' paradise that Palin has been decrying?  Repulbicans have presided over the biggest redistribution of wealth in our history - from the working class to the wealthy.  The tax burden has been shifted to the middle class.  The gap between the wealthy and the middle class is the greatest in history.  

The GOP has opposed regulations for worker's health, safety, compensation, and we're supposed to believe that they actually give a rat's ass about a plumber?  The only thing Republicans have in common with Joe the Plumber is not paying taxes.  

- dubyadoubte

October 20, 2008 at 2:09pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

miceelf, gross.

adaglas, that sounds like Blazing Saddles.

- satyendra

October 20, 2008 at 2:28pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

One of the things I've noticed is that the McCain campaign is having real trouble designating Obama as a wimp and therefore not an appropriately full-blooded in-your-face American male (something they managed well with Kerry and obliquely with Gore).  One very interesting aspect of that film of "Joe" meeting Obama last week is the way in which Obama is clearly NOT intimidated by Joe's hey-I'm-a-regular-working-guy-and-you're-some-smoothtalking-shine-so-let's-cut-the-crap" vibe which is in evidence.

The abstract idea they are trying to sneak in the back door is that anyone who isn't wealthy is in fact wealthy, and to draw silly distinctions between people who are actually wealthy and people who would merely like to be wealthy (or who might be wealthy at some future point) is to advance some exotic "socialism."  But behind that is imo a failed attempt to create a kind of culture war confrontation that would have had Obama as the willowy liberal pussycat and "Joe" as the solid conservative rock-ribbed American.  The problem is that Obama has the alpha thing too, however, but without the truculence and resentment, so sometimes people don't see it.

- ironyroad

October 20, 2008 at 2:29pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

How is williamyard like Joe the Plumber?

* I put my condom on one foot at a time.

* I understand that taking a four-year-old boy with a full bladder to a plumbing supply store displaying dozens of toilets he's not allowed to use might prove confusing, at best.

* Women make me shower first thing when I show up.

* I recognize that defining the point of demarcation between the end of the butt crack and beginning of the leg pit presents a philosophical conundrum.

* I am more than my profession. Therefore, feel free to refer to me as williamyard the Ear Hair Groomer.

- williamyard

October 20, 2008 at 3:00pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Yesterday in, I believe, New Mexico, somebody held up a sign saying "Ed the Dairyman" and Palin, ever the pro, managed to work "Ed" into her stump speech on the fly, more than once, right after citing "Joe the Plumber" (e.g. "... but Joe the Plumber and Ed the Dairyman, I believe they think [Obama's tax proposal] sounds like socialism...")

(I plan to spend this afternoon walking around with a sign saying "The The Article." It's not that I'm not as solipsistically egomaniacal as "Ed the Dairyman"; it's just that I strongly believe that, in these stressful times, we must not forget the parts of speech.)

Meanwhile, what to do with Palin after her ticket loses? I think she should MC an "American Idol"-type show ("Stump with Sarah!") where "regular people" compete to see who earns a shout-out from her during her next stump speech. They have to answer quiz questions about U.S. history ("Who was Britney Spears' first husband?"), the American legal system ("Which of the following is from the Prophet Isaiah?"), mathematics ("How many in a dozen?"), etc.

She can end the show with the faux "stump speech," a brief diatribe against people who aren't "pro-America" or who "pal around" with "terrorists." Then shes points to that week's winner, e.g., "I think Mary the Mary Kay Saleswoman knows exactly what I mean..."

For winning, Mary gets a certified pre-owned 2008 Lincoln Navigator. The also-rans each get a case of Splenda and some Lee Press-On Nails.

Spin-offs include a Candyland-like board game and a Barbie-like Sarah doll complete with miniature BlackBerry, First Hunk Todd, and Baby Trig.

- williamyard

October 20, 2008 at 3:29pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

You'd pass up your chance to a super cool pirate, to be a Viking?  No way!

- ReganaD

October 20, 2008 at 3:55pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Pirates?  Those rum-soaked frigate jockeys? Bah.  Give me a blunt axe, a longboat and a flagon of mead any day.

- adaglas

October 20, 2008 at 6:24pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

SHARE HIGHLIGHT

0 CHARACTERS SELECTED

TWEET THIS

POST TO TUMBLR

SHARE ON FACEBOOK

Close