It's fascinating to me how McCain, who spent so much of 1999-2005 at loggerheads with elements of the conservative base, keeps forgetting the distinction between things that make the base excited and things that help his campaign. Sarah Palin is the obvious example, but Joe is in some ways a deeper and truer example. The idea behind the Joe the Plumber saga is that Barack Obama would be bad for people like Joe, a small business owner who is (putatively) prosperous enough to be hit by Obama's tax hikes on people with over $250,000 in annual income. Of course Joe doesn't actually earn that much. But if he had, Joe would just be the very model of a hard-core Republican. Whites are more Republican than non-whites. Men are more Republican than women. Small business owners are more Republican than any other occupational group. High-income people are more Republican than are middle-class and poor people. And among white people, those with no college degree are more Republican than those with college degrees.
Thus, a white male small-business owner practicing a blue collar trade and earning enough money to be hit by Obama's tax hikes is nothing other than the Platonic Ideal of a Republican (think Tom DeLay when he owned a successful bug-killing business). Republican crowds go wild for Joe because they can identify with him. But by the same token, the people who identify with Joe are the Republican base. They can't turn this thing around. And they're certainly not the people you're supposed to be talking to in October. It'd be as if Barack Obama were criss-crossing the country with a young, hip lesbian acting as his main surrogate to attack McCain's health care plan.
Basically. I think it comes from drinking your own Kool-Aid. To these guys, America is still Joe the Plumber. This is why you hear them disqualifying whole swaths of the country with phrases like "the pro-America parts" or "real Virginia." They have mistaken their little retreat in the forest, for the forest itself. Is it not a good thing to live in a democracy? Every four years you get to show your leaders exactly who you are.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
The "Joe the Plumber" tale is a sort of self-therapy for McCain-- The anxious feeling that he gets from cognitive dissonance goes away for a time-- he thinks, "Yeah, this is what the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA really stands for". That, and the possibility of marrying a beer heiress.
great title, seeing as "the takeover" is in full effect. who's next up on that summer jam screen?
"I think it comes from drinking your own Kool-Aid."
Yeah, but there's a difference between Palin and McCain: Palin doesn't have to drink the Kool-Aid, McCain does. He knows what's in the kool-aid and drinks for effect---this makes it easier to say what he has to say. He needs to stay drunk and surround himself with the folks at the party who think he's a swell guy, and who laugh at his obnoxious jokes. At least that's how he comes across...
I think Yglesias is wrong here. Joe The Plumber, the man, not the issue he represents, makes sense as a campaign ploy. Even if he owns a small business and he's (putatively) a lot wealthier than most people, he's still got that blue-collar name and occupation and shaved head. People much less successful than he is can relate to the guy. It isn't like Obama running around with a young, hip lesbian at all; there are still a lot of homophobes in this country and not many plumberphobes. The problem is that, as nice of a mascot and symbol he makes, you're just not going to win an election on the issue of raising taxes for those who make over a quarter million a year. Is it wrong? Yeah, I think the threshold for raising taxes in this economy should be much higher. But it's so far from a winning issue.
Here's why Joe the Plumber doesn't work: Joe came to prominence because Obama engaged him in discussion. Obama had a reasonable discussion with someone about why he thought his plan was best, and he acknowledged that even if his plan wasn't great for Joe (which is not clear, by the way) that he was trying to do the greatest good for the most Americans.
In short, every time McCain used Joe in an attack, it was basically a reminder of a time when Obama looked most like a responsible progressive President. Good luck beating that.
Obama didn't need any help from any 527, because McCain pretty much beat up himself. However, there was a great audio tape of McCain arguing with someone at a town hall meeting - that I wished was used prominently. It was a couple of years back, when he was supporting his immigration bill.
McCain said in essence that Americans were: too lazy, wouldn't pick lettuce for $50! an hour, and that's why we need illegal immigrants to do it.
What made the audio so fascinating was the contempt in his voice, and his complete and total out-of-touch mentality. For him, $50 was like the minimum wage. Stunning. So that kind of money was not enough for the average American to pick lettuce.
This fantasy and ignorance of average income fits with the JTP theme. It was amazing to hear, but this was before I found out how wealthy McCain's wife is.
Ha...not that us libs would have a problem with that.
The Joe the Plumber thing that upsets me is the whole "Joe asked a question of Obama that Obama gave an answer to... and McCain used Joe the Plumber's question and Obama's answer as a weapon against Obama" and how the next thing I know, I know about Joe's medical billing issues and about whether one needs a license to work residential.
And, of course, the whole Obama supporters who see this as an attack on Obama who point out to me that Joe's dirty laundry being aired was McCain's fault and anyway it's public domain don't help me feel less creeped out.
You'd think that the whole "Obama's Aunt" thing would give them some insight into the whole "creeped out" thing. So far, it doesn't seem that it has.
Ah, well. If things go the way I expect them to, I expect Obama to out-Clinton Clinton and for Progressives to be scratching their heads and wondering what the heck happened in 2016.
The economy is in the shitter so McCain had to be very selective in what he brings up with that subject. McCain can't run on Bush economics any more than Mondale could run on Carter's in 1984. So he has to pick apart what Obama is offering rather than run on a republican record. The thing to hammer Obama on is the redistribution part, not that someone is taking from Joe the Plumber (because it is highly unlikely his taxes will go up).
Since about 40% of people don't pay income taxes, the line of attack should have been that this is welfare in disguise to appeal to those who actually do pay federal income taxes.
With this Joe the Plumber guy, the republicans shouldn't have used him as a poster child for those who work hard and play by the rules. They should have used him to show that after 8 years of all these charges of extremism and unfair tactics by Republicans, Democrats used the power of big government to investigate a guy like Joe the Plumber for daring to ask a question. Not that this narrative is completely truthful, but neither is the Naomi Wolf claim that we are living under a fascist government.
Jaybird,
You've been going on and on about Joe; give it a break, or perhaps be slightly more creeped out about Obama's aunt suddenly being 'outed' illegally just before an election.
Joe seems to be fine with the publicity.
Jaybird,
That argument ceased to have any validity when Joe started regularly appearing as a speaker at McCain rallies and on news programs talking about what Obama meant for Isreal and so on. Then he became no different than Carly Fiorina or any other public McCain spokesman. If you expect people to take your views seriously then people have aright to know who the person expressing those views is.
John Legend summed it up best on Bill Maher's show last week, Joe is a fictional character. Since his entire merit as a spokesman is based on his supposed biograpahy people have a right to know that is a complete BS.
Jaybird,
I think you were wrong when you brought that point up a couple weeks ago, and I think you are still wrong now. The Obama aunt parallel makes no sense whatsoever.
McCain decided to use Joe the Plumber as a campaign prop. Joe the Plumber was making speeches and declaring that an Obama victory would mean the death of Isreal. You don't think people are going to look into Joe's past? This shocks you and creeps you out?
If Obama decided to use his Aunt as a campaign prop, I would fully expect the opposition to look into her housing situation and her immigration status. Obama didn't use her as a campaign prop, and they still did it. And no, I'm not creeped out.
I'm shocked that you're shocked.
Forgive me, Jaybird, If I doubt your ability to prophesy:
Jaybird, I don't believe the Obama campaign chose to have John McCain mention "Joe the Plumber" a dozen times in the last Presidential debate, unless they've created an utterly awesome mind-control device no one's talking about. If you talk about someone on live TV when a bunch of people are watching, lo! they become famous. Who would have thought?
White: check
Male: check
Small Business Owner: check
Above Average Income: Not this year, hopefully next. We'll give that a half-check
I guess it's my collage degree that keeps me out of the GOP.
"perhaps be slightly more creeped out about Obama's aunt suddenly being 'outed' illegally just before an election."
I'm sorry, I thought I was communicating that I was creeped out by the aunt thing.
Way back when, I am pretty sure I used the analogy of an illegal immigrant (Jose the Carpenter? Was that here?) who asked McCain a question and McCain's answer was used by Obama... and we find out that JtC was an illegal immigrant... would the Dems be creeped out at all?
Well, as it turns out, we've got an illegal immigrant aunt donating to a political campaign.
If I were explaining to you, very slowly, that we were a nation of laws and Obama's Aunt needs to have her ass deported after spending time in jail for breaking election laws... yeah. I suppose you could hammer me for not being sufficiently creeped out.
But I was trying (and obviously failing) to imply that the aunt thing is creepy too and I was hoping that the aunt thing would give some insight into the whole creeped out thing.
Obviously it hasn't.
"She may be a nail.
I don't think that she is a coffin nail."
I believe that I was talking about Palin there, no? And whether she was the final nail in the coffin for the Republican Party? Or merely in McCain's campaign?
I don't think, whatever happens to McCain or to the Republican Party, that it will be because of the Palin pick. I see her as more likely the future of the Republican party, than the downfall of it.
Time will tell, however.
I wonder when people look back on the tactics of Republicans posing as independents on blogs - Jaybird, Libertarian, et all, will they see that it was a strategy that convinced anyone?
Time will tell.
You're right, and Joe the Plumber was a bust, but just a note about aspirational psychology. I build websites for student use 3 through 12, and one of the things we always notice about openly available sites is that kids are just as likely to use tools pitched to their aspirational self-image as the tools explicitly created for their actual group. So kids in jr high always want to use the high school games, the high school kids want things targeted to college kids and so on.
All of which is to say, that I think you're overstating the idea of 1-to-1 mirroring relationship in identification. The set of people who might identify with a Joe the plumber - for whatever dumb reason - is bigger than the actual sets of Joe the plumbers. My immigrant father was completely obsessed with Archie Bunker when we kids, for example, because somehow or another he decided that that was what "an American" looked an talked like. crazy!
but thats all an aside. it's a beautiful day out in LA, CA. I think we are going to win.
"Way back when, I am pretty sure I used the analogy of an illegal immigrant (Jose the Carpenter? Was that here?) who asked McCain a question and McCain's answer was used by Obama... and we find out that JtC was an illegal immigrant... would the Dems be creeped out at all?"
Frankly, no. I wouldn't be creeped out, and I CERTAINLY wouldn't be surprised. But yet, I don't think Obama would use Jose the Carpenter as a campaign tool without vetting him first. Because that would be dumb. Obviously.
The majority (I'm not sure by how much) of undecided voters are women. Not that women are necessarily plumberphobes, but I kind of doubt that Joe's brand of ill-informed bluster makes him particularly appealing to them.
Zak, I made the same point (more or less) on Matt's blog-- McCain's losing with women, Hispanics, and Jews, so he picked a white Polish plumber. Brilliant move!
So Jaybird's point is stupid (it's McCain's fault he received all the media scrutiny), but I don't see the point in jumping all over him. The only thing that was a little disturbing about this is that some Ohio state official ordered a search of His Plumberness's private records. So reported the Columbus Dispatch. The link is long, but it's very easy to find.
"So Jaybird's point is stupid (it's McCain's fault he received all the media scrutiny)"
My point is that all the media scrutiny was creepy.
It doesn't matter if it happened because of McCain or because of Obama.
Jaybird writes: "I don't think, whatever happens to McCain or to the Republican Party, that it will be because of the Palin pick. I see her as more likely the future of the Republican party, than the downfall of it."
If that's the case then the Republicans should change their name to the Insane Assclown Party.
"So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
"If that's the case then the Republicans should change their name to the Insane Assclown Party."
Not the "repiglicans"?
I more see the future of the Republican Party to be playing "The Culture War" 24/7. It'd be anti-intellectual, us-vs-them, 24/7. They want to force your children to learn evilution. They want to force your children to learn about sex ed in kindergarden. They want to force your children to learn that Christopher Columbus was a mass murderer. They want to force your church to provide gay marriages on Sunday at 10am instead of having your pastor be allowed to give a sermon on Grace.
So on and so forth.
Instead of learning from Bush and McCain, I suspect that they will double down on the culture war.
And that's why I think that Sarah Palin is the future of the Republican Party.
By the way, Joe the Plumber is now jobless. Apparently they couldn't keep him down on the tile, now that's he's seen Par-ee... I mean Palin.
One cannot help but wonder if he'd still have a job had he told Obama "I'm your number one fan!"
It's McCain's fault, of course, for using him as an example.
But one wonders anyhow.
"A wise man told me don't argue with fools, 'cuz people from a distance can't tell who is who."
When in doubt, lean on Jay...