Samuel Wurzelbacher is a name that has been on the lips of America for the past three weeks. Oh wait - you have never said it or heard it? How about this one then - JOE THE PLUMBER. Does that ring a bell? Unless you have been vacationing on Pluto the bell should be ringing at ear splitting levels.
The latest is that Sam has his own bus on the John McCain for President campaign and is making speeches on behalf of McCain. There is a draft movement afoot to run him for a seat in the US House of Representatives in two years from a Toledo, Ohio area congressional district and SW seems open to the prospect. He has an agent who is currently shopping book ideas in New York and is no shrinking violet from Publicity which he seems to crave.
Those who love him, seem to feel that Samuel Wurzelbacher is America. Those who hate him - and count me firmly in that group - feel that he is the symbol of much of what is wrong with America.
As a middle aged White Male living in the Midwest, I have known lots of guys like SW over the years. They seem perpetually angry with a chip on their shoulder produced by government resentment and bottom of a shot glass idealogy. They are not that bright, are not that skilled or talented, and seem to forever bounce around the working class as their dreams of riches and glory recede each year as their hairlines seem to do. And they have little practical control over either.
Joe the Plumber is a fraud and fiction. In fact, by the standards of Ohio, he is not even a plumber. He never even completed an apprenticeship and does not have a plumbers license. He can work as a laborer for a plumbing firm and do tasks which plumbers do - which he does - and he earns about 40 thousand dollars a year.
Like a lot of these beefy, angry white men, he has dreams of grandeur but fails to back them up with actual day to day effort and planning. You would think somebody who wants to own a plumbing company would have gotten his own license and became an actual plumber. You would think a guy who wants to own his own plumbing company would be saving for such a dream. You would think that a guy who wants to own his own company may have taken some courses to prepare him for the rigors of the businessman. But NOPE to all three.
Samuel, as it turns out has a convenient strawman for which to blame his failures and sad limitations of societal station upon. Its the mean old GOVERNMENT and their policy of taxation. And he fears that when Barack Obama increases the tax on incomes above 250K by a whopping 3 percentage points, that it will kill his dreams. Now lets conveniently forget the fact that SW could multiply his income by a factor of 6 and still not make 250K each year. And lets conveniently forget that under both candidates plans, SW would fare far better under the Obama plan than he would the McCain plan. And lets conveniently forget that even if Faeries from the Underworld magically appeared and gave SW a pot of gold today, he still would not have the skills or knowledge to run a company. But he believes that the GOVERNMENT and its tax policy are keeping him down and ruining his future. In fact we know know that SW is a tax deadbeat who owes the State of Ohio over a thousand dollars in back income taxes. Yeah, he hates taxes all right.
SW is a bad joke. He is symbolic of the white, male, angry American who always blames others for his own personal limitations. They are in every bar in America. Buy them a beer and they will complain to you half the night.
"I wanted to be a plumber, or company owner, or attorney, or doctor, or whatever, but the system was against me."
Sometimes its affirmative action giving all the spots to undeserving minorities who once they get the actual jobs have to have white guys doing their work for them because they are incompentent. Yeah right.
Sometimes its the pressure of the wife and kids and the bills which never stop preventing them from taking that four years for law school or medical school or getting that plumbers license or whatever. Yeah right.
And sometimes it the mean old GOVERNMENT which takes their money in the form of taxation and if they could only keep what they earn.... sorry... the fruits of their labor.... then all would be well and nirvanna would be achieved and all their dreams would come true. Yeah right.
Sometimes its the trifecta - all of the above.
I know people like this. I have one in my family. Most folks do. The are legion.
When will this nation give the firm back of the hand to jokers like Samuel Wurzelbacher and quit catering to their delusions and phony dreams?
The really sad thing is that the whole Sam The Plumber, sorry, Joe The Plumber thing seems to be finally gaining some traction in the McCain campaign and showing some results in some polls. If McCain wins, he owes alot to Sam/Joe Wurzelbacher. Maybe he can name SW to be Secretary of Plumbing in his next cabinet? Wait- there is not a position like that. Well then, maybe he can give SW a plunger and retain him to be his personal Keeper of the White House Toilet. That should pay more than 40 grand a year.