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In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
- FDR
When the Presidency is your bet, you do not pull your punches. You match a candidate with a candidate, an endorser with an endorser, a running mate with a running mate and a plumber with……a plumber! So now it is time for the Democrats to bring in their very own Joe in the fray, who also happens to be, not surprisingly, a plumber too. A Joe the Plumber robot call message from the Democrats now presents a certain ‘Joe Martinez’, a plumber in Colorado - and he supports Obama’s tax cut plans.
While Obama quite expectedly maintained a dignified silence on the issue, the Democratic Party did not recline with folded arms. First, Joe Wurzelbacher's private life came under media scrutiny. The San Francisco Chronicle revealed some telling loopholes in the 'middle class American chasing the big American Dream' narrative that Joe the Plumber came to be associated with. As it turned out, the Joe was not a Joe, the Plumber was not a plumber, and the tax-speculator never paid his own taxes for years!
However, this line of attack somewhat reeked of individual slander, and it was necessary to bring back the actual tax cut issue back into the spotlight. Americans were generally growing weary of the amount of footage and print space that this ubiquitous symbol of American middle class was eating up for the last week or so. The Democrats needed to find a way to rubbish Joe the Plumber's claims and also foreground Obama's tax cut policies at one go. And the solution, it seems, was only a phone call away.
With Joe the Plumber robot calls doing the rounds, speculations on Joe the Plumber being a Republican plant also gain currency. The Democrats maintain that the real Joe (who apparently never existed if Democrat campaigners are to be believed) was planted by the RNC members to catch Obama on the wrong foot. John McCain's insistent references to him in the presidential debate on October 15 stoked the embers. Similarly, GOP's quick reaction to assert that Joe was not a plant ironically raised speculations of him actually being one.
The truth behind the Joe story may never be known; but nothing is impossible when the spoils are high, and billions are at stake. Meanwhile, plumbers who happens to have Joe as their first name continue making some quick bucks.
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