Why Joe Matters

One of the more successful strategies employed by McCain in the recent debate was the emphasis on “Joe Plumber”– a down-to-earth, small business-owning worker who, at a recent Obama stop, managed to evoke some of the clearest evidence yet that Obama’s agenda is not as conservative as he makes it out to be. Obama’s “spread the wealth around” line stands in stark contrast to the campaign that he has thus far run– a campaign that has sought, and mostly succeeded, to co-opt McCain’s supposedly right-wing agenda (It is astonishing to realize that Obama’s success is mostly built around the fact that he is running under the guise of being a conservative, rather than honestly as a liberal).

Notable here is the fact that Obama’s appeal to the rural American seems, somehow, to outstrip that of Sarah Palin, an actual rural American– indeed, one who is constantly under assault precisely because she is a largely rural soldier in the so-called “cultural wars”. Why is this? How has Obama managed to succeed in portraying himself as a “bridge builder”– even a small-government, fiscally conservative Democrat? And why does Joe illustrate so obviously the chinks in Obama’s narrative armor?

To begin, Obama’s self-written (and largely false) story is one of a “uniter”. This perception is key to his popularity. So long as Obama is seen as a figure who can heal the partisan bickering in Washington, he will remain ahead in the race. That he has never shown any propensity to actually do any sort of uniting is, sadly, irrelevant: the question is whether the idea is plausible or not. (This is why his surrogates are attacking Joe with such vehemence). Thus, no matter how many times McCain suspends his campaign to actually engage in attempts at bipartisan work in Congress, so long as he allows Obama to pretend as if he were the more reasonable candidate, it is all for naught.

When Obama looked Joe in the eye and said that he wanted to “spread the wealth around”, he was revealing, on accident, just how far to the left he is. Obama is a socialist, plain and simple, and while there might be a perfectly acceptable debate that could be happening about whether this is the direction that America should be heading in, it isn’t the one that Obama wants, as it undermines the entire foundation of his fictitious political biography. Simply put, were we to actually be arguing over the merits of Obama’s policies– almost all of which are based on classic wealth redistribution tactics– rather than over the merits of Obama’s rhetoric, this election would be significantly tilted against him.

McCain’s seeming unwillingness to challenge Obama on his “tax cut” claims is a major factor in how far behind he is in the polls. McCain, purposefully or not, has allowed Obama to make the case that, despite a long history of associations with incredibly radical leftists, he is somehow going to “change direction” from eight years of a largely expansive Bush Administration to a smaller, more limited form of government. This assertion is, on the face, patently ridiculous. Obama wants to socialize health care, he wants to redistribute the wealth of big business through New Deal-esque programs that will mimic classical socialist policies. His forgein policy is based on multiculturalism (and thus built on a heavily Marxist foundation). And so on. If McCain doesn’t point this out– and he’s running out of time to do so– he will almost certainly lose the election.

Perhaps the greatest irony of modern politics is that, after eight years of a supposedly “conservative” Republican President, the federal government (and its deficit) are larger and higher than ever. Thus, there is great pressure for the next President to move toward more, not less conservative policies. Analysts have marveled at the mostly competitive state of the current Presidential race, but what they failed to realize was that despite the unpopularity of the current Republican President, the overriding desire of most Americans is not for liberal Democratic ideas, but rather small-government conservative ones. This is why Ron Paul– an otherwise unimportant fringe candidate– was able to garner so much traction. His policies of libertarian social outlooks combined with actual conservatism are perhaps the most anti-Bush that have yet to be put forward– and they make it plainly clear that it is Obama’s policies, not McCain’s, that are the closest to those of the current Administration (unless you count Fannie and Freddie) in that they seek to expand the size and purview of government with little attention to the fiscal responsibility that must inevitably accompany such a grand plan.

Thus, we see just exactly why Joe Plumber is so important. He’s the most powerful and concise way of pointing out the reality of our current political climate, rather than the carefully constructed fantasy land of the Obama campaign. When faced with an honest, forthright question, Obama– for once– gave an honest, forthright answer. And that answer was: “I am a socialist, see, and I want to help you, the poor, the downtrodden. And I will do it with money that I take, not from the most greedy in or society, but rather, from the most productive.”