Martin Eisenstadt says Joe the Plumber wasn’t vetted:
John McCain did great tonight in the debate. But every time John mentioned “Joe the Plumber,” some of us in the campaign banged our heads against the wall. If Steve Schmidt had any hair left, I hear he would have been pulling it out tonight. He reportedly screamed at John’s debate prep team tonight (out of earshot of reporters, of course). “You idiots – he’s related to Charles Keating… of the Keating Five scandal!” They thought they had a real live Joe Six-Pack who’s spurned Barack Obama’s tax plan. But what they forgot to do was check on Joe Wurzelbacher’s background.
Joe’s registered Republican. Shaum mentioned earlier that he doesn’t have a plumbing license. Steve Benen points out that by the premise of his own question, “Wurzelbacher would probably get a tax break under Obama’s plan.”
And you might guess that the folks over at DailyKos are asking if this average Joe doesn’t always bother to pay his taxes. On the other hand, James Joyner salutes him for telling ABC News:
“that the government should not tax some Americans at a higher percentage than others and argued that this principle should extend not only to taxpayers at his income-level but also to the world’s richest man. [Bill Gates].”
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