Friday, October 17, 2008

Plumbing The Depths Of Political Rhetoric

As a centerpiece of his last debate, John McCain repeatedly tied his arguments to the case of Joe the Plumber-- an actual Ohio businessman whose bonafides were apparently never vetted.

Barely a day after making plumber Joseph Wurzelbacher famous-- saying over and over again that he would be paying higher taxes under Barack Obama, McCain regretfully got the fully story on the plumber's iffy situation: he actually owes back taxes, he is not a licensed plumber, and most importantly, he makes less than $250,000 a year-- which means he would receive a tax cut under Obama's economic plan.

As Politico points out, McCain likes to say that he isn’t George W. Bush – and in this case of bungled public relations, it is clear he is not. The famously disciplined Bush campaign operation would likely have found the perfect anonymous citizen to illustrate a policy proposal, rather than spontaneously wrap itself around an unknown entity with so many asterisks. John McCain making a last-minute risky decision to embrace an unproven quantity in the hopes of scoring big? Where have we seen that before?

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