Hurray for Joe the Plumber

He became a media sensation without spending a dime on PR – Joe the Plumber.

It all started when Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher, who works as a plumber, told Obama during his campaign in Ohio that his tax plan would keep him from buying the business that currently employs him.

It would have ended there, if both presidential hopefuls would not have started referring to “Joe the Plumber” every opportunity they got. Maria Gavrilovic of CBS news counted that both candidates mentioned his name more than 25 times during their 90-minute debate, compared to the 16 times they mentioned Iraq. Needless to say, Saturday Night Life spoofed it brilliantly.

The media jumped all over poor Joe, digging into his private life. In a time where you worry about the loyalties and ties of your neighbors (especially if they have "Middle Eastern-sounding names), the relentless US newshounds tried to find any piece of dirt they could on our hardworking plumber. They claimed that Joe does not have a license to operate as a plumber, is behind on his taxes, and would actually enjoy a tax cut of about $500 under the Democrat's plans, because his real income is much lower than he claimed. Whatever.

It for sure didn’t stop Republican Senator John McCain to turn our Joseph into the ultimate Average Joe or Joe Six-pack symbol, in an attempt to gain the upper hand over rival Obama. Up till now, the only clear winner is Joe himself.

He got coverage (without any sponsors or funding!) that many celebrities (or wannebees) would dream of. For starters, the prestigious Times Online wrote a 2-page profile on him. Wurzelbacher was also interviewed by Katie Couric of CBS Evening News, Neil Cavuto of Fox News and Diana Sawyer of Good Morning America. The only one who didn’t show any interest in him was Oprah – no wonder since she is a staunch Obama supporter.

Not everyone is happy with our Joe. Female plumbers, construction workers, pipefitters and other skilled tradeswomen are peeved, since no one has bothered to try to court their interests. As Lauren Sugerman, executive director of Chicago Women in Trades points out, real women like “Sarah the plumber” “Yvette the electrician” and “Meghan the carpenter” are facing pressing issues of their own. Personally, I am not quite sure what these are, since working in those professions raise the same concerns for men and women: payment, regulations and safety issues. But maybe I am missing the point here, being a high-tech nerdette. Feel free to leave your comment on this blog to that effect (please note that any comments of current and/or ex-lovers will be promptly purged unless they are extremely positive and make sense). Anyway, we always refer to “your average Joe”; we never talk about “your average Sarah”, sorry! I am sure you don’t want to be referred to as “Jane Doe”, do you?

In an eerie blur of reality and fantasy, Joe is being quoted on the left and on the right (pun intended) with the authority of a Bill Clinton. His (Joe's not Bill's) latest view on Obama and Israel promptly made it to the leading Israeli media. When asked by a retired Florida lawyer if he also believed that a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel, he answered "I'll go ahead and agree with you on that." In contrast to Condi Rice et al, our favorite Joe loves plain talk! Is he a new Secretary of State in the making?

With Halloween around the corner, guess which outfits are the bestsellers this year?
Correct: Sarah Palin wigs, greedy banker outfits and….. Joe the Plumber plungers!
No matter who will win next month – our Joe for sure spiced up the 2008 elections!

Obama’s magazine cover – lessons to be learned

On the cover of its latest issue, the satirical magazine The New Yorker published a cartoon of Mr. & Mrs Obama.
The presidential hopeful is depicted as a Muslim while his wife-unit is dressed in army fatigues with an AK-47 slung over her shoulder, bearing a fleeting resemblance to Angela Davis.
OBL looks down at the fist-greeting couple from his portrait on the wall.

In conservative America, it created a media storm of tsunami proportions. In a time of economic recession and Iran’s war games, the US media and bloggers alike pounced on the story like a cat on mouse. Go figure.

The Obama camp shouted foul and McCain, who needs to be PC even if it kills him, pompously announced (via his spokesman Tucker Bounds by e-mail) that “we completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”
Well, he could hardly say anything else, could he?
In the cartoon, various concerns about Obama’s background are shown.

• About 10 per cent of US voters believe Mr O. to be Muslim because of his childhood ties to the religion through his Kenyan father and Indonesian stepfather.
  Having Hussein as a middle name doesn’t help, nor did the crazy remarks of his connections Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former terrorist William Ayers.
• Michelle O. has made some anti-patriotic remarks (or remarks perceived as critical of her native country) about the US in the past. The fact that she comes across as a hard-nosed career woman and not as nearly as empathic as media darling Oprah works against her.
• The fist bump was copied from the one they shared when he got the Democratic nomination in St. Paul, Minn. Hey, if you want to be cool and go for the dap, don’t be offended when its lampooned later on – you are in politics!

The New Yorker is known for its satirical magazine covers.
Its cover depicting President Bush being flooded in the Oval Office after Hurricane Katrina was chosen by a panel of US magazine editors and designers as the best cover of the year 2006.
The illustration shows the waters rising around Mr. Bush and his top appointees as the flood from New Orleans engulfs the White House, which was criticized for failing to respond promptly and fully to the disaster.
I do not remember a big brawl about that one, do you?
New Yorker editor David Remnick is defending the cover, stating that it “satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign… It is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover."

Makes absolute sense to me!
As The Independent pointed out, The New Yorker seems to have "winkled out an essential truth about Barack Obama – he doesn't do satire".
And the same goes for gaggles of American commentators and bloggers who are outraged.
In my opinion, they are missing some important aspects.

1. The cover reflects public concerns about Obama that he better address –fast.
   He wants to be elected, non? So inform your constituency (and the rest of the world) who you are and what you stand for!
2. Being lampooned is part of political life, as Bush 2.0 and other world leaders can vouch for. So is you want to stay in the political kitchen, learn to take the heat.
   Talk to Bill Clinton – he turned it into an art.
3. Every American will proudly proclaim to the world how great his/her country’s freedom of the press is.
   (Not to be confused with freedom from the press - this entails celebrities being protected from pesky paparazzi).
   But as soon as it impacts our American’s personal sensibilities, it seems to be a different story.
   Please, be more European and lighten up.
   To get some practice: watch Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld at least 3 times a week. His stay in the UK obviously did him a world of good.

In the end, it is The New Yorker which is laughing all the way to the bank.
In a time when the printed media are under tremendous pressure, the circulation of this issue must have gone trough the roof.

My advice to Obama: shrug it off with a smile - it will only ad to your appeal....
You will need a good sense of humor once you go head-to-head with McCaim - trust me, it's going to get ugly before you (providing you beat your senior citizen opponent) are sworn in.