The plumber who never was
By
Lorenzo Gonzalo Read Spanish Version
Samuel
J. Wurzelbacher is the name of the plumber made famous by John McCain
in the final presidential debate. After the debate, the man became
famous as "Joe the Plumber."
The
reason why Senator McCain named Mr. Wurzelbacher was because, days
before the debate, the alleged plumber had confronted the other
presidential candidate, Barack Obama. In that encounter, Samuel told
Obama that he was in the process of buying a business that would net
him more than $250,000 a year, which meant that, under Obama’s tax
proposal, he would have to pay more taxes than under McCain’s tax
plan. Obama answered in the affirmative, adding that, while it was
true that the plumber would earn less in an Obama administration,
those around him, his workers, the people who made it possible for
him to earn such a high amount, would earn a lot more than if John
McCain’s had been elected.
A
few days after the debate, in which Wurzelbacher became news through
the magic that makes people become worldwide news, the waters
regained their level.
It
turns out that Joe the Plumber is not a licensed plumber. In other
words, he cannot practice plumbing because he needs to pass the exam
in the state of Ohio, where he lives in a modest home. In fact, he
has never studied plumbing and does not belong to the plumbers union,
whose leadership endorse Obama’s candidacy. Not only that, he owes
the federal government back taxes, which is not a practice generally
accepted among working citizens and professionals in the United
States. Finally, Mr. "Joe" stated that he practices
plumbing despite lacking the proper license, which means he is
breaking the law.
Because
candidate McCain knows the importance of a debate in the traditional
style (it is not what the candidates say but the effect their
performance can produce), he took advantage of an isolated fact
without checking it thoroughly, in order to achieve the desired
publicity. That fact, and the fact that he said he was no George W.
Bush, distracted the attention of the most of the 60 million TV
viewers who watched that episode of the political novel U.S.
presidential elections have become. As a result, Senator McCain did
not have to try very hard to elaborate on his economic plans and
allowed the spectators to not try very hard to understand the
difference between himself and Obama.
For
Obama, the main content of the debate (after McCain pointed out he is
not Bush) was to stress the similarity in the policies of both
candidates in the economic field, where the causes of the disaster
afflicting the country lie. One of those crucial points concerns the
suspension of the regulations that indirectly monitored the wrongful
actions that originated the huge asymmetry in the distribution of
wealth in the U.S. That suspension unleashed the base instincts of
the capitalist wolves, led to the collapse of the stock exchange and
placed the nation on the brink of a recession.
Luckily,
a large majority of citizens paid attention to the serious and
thoughtful statements made by Obama, who concentrated on the critical
aspects that harm the citizenry. Despite McCain’s efforts, which had
some results, the concerns of the population over the major economic
disturbances that have occurred recently have formed a reformist
current of thought. Proof of that is the fact that Obama has stayed
ahead in the polls and a majority of the analysts project him as the
winning candidate.
In
the future, the near future perhaps, there will be no need for fables
like that of the plumber who never was. Instead, citizens will be
told, with objectivity and without theatricality, the real problems
that affect their lives.
