Can plumber turn it around

Michael Barone:

Can Joe Wurzelbacher, Joe the Plumber from Ohio, change the course of this campaign? That's one question that was raised at the third presidential debate. Wurzelbacher is the man who, in a moment caught on YouTube, confronts Barack Obama on his plan to raise taxes on people like him. Obama, sotto voce, replies that he wants to "spread the wealth around." In the third consecutive week in which the headlines of the financial crisis have prompted both candidates to denounce "Wall Street greed," the image of those whom Obama would tax higher was suddenly not an investment banker but a plumber.

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In three debates, the spin artists go on, Obama has shown that he more than meets the minimal standards for the office, as Ronald Reagan did in the single debate in 1980, and in a year like that one, in which most voters want the in party out, that will be enough. But the 1980 debate was on the Thursday before the election, and the decisive swing came over the weekend. Voters took almost every minute they could. Will they take more time this year, and give some thought to Joe the Plumber?

Joe the Plumber has really frightened the Democrats. You can tell by their vicious assaults on him as well as the assaults of their media allies. They are trying to do to Joe what they tried to do to the Swift vets. They search for some chink in his story and try to use that to destroy him. While their finding are meaningless to his points, they are using any perceived inconsistency to dismiss the important points the Plumber made.

The issue is about Obama's policy of spreading the wealth and not about whether Joe owes back taxes or doesn't make $250,000. In fact what Joe was pointing out was how Obamas redistribution plan destroys the American dream.