Where is the lefts "Joe the Plumber"??

[maxrandb]

I'm not talking about some asshole "wannabee" Plumber without a liscence who beats his wife, doesn't pay his court fines and thinks that if he just works hard at his $15 an hour job, he will eventually join the ranks of the top 1% and get his taxes cut....NO!

I'm talking about where is the real life Plumber?

Where is the real life Coal Miner?

Where is the real life Fireman?

Where is the real life Grocery Manager?

Where is the real life School Teacher?

Where is the real life Sub-contractor?

and why can't the media find them?

We can "dis" ole' Joe the non-Plumber all we want. We can point out what an idiot he is. We can demean the guys backward beliefs, his education, his economic ideas, and his idiotic "When I'm in the top 1% I want a tax-cut too" bullshit, BUT...

and it's a very important BUT IMHO....

We run the risk of again being defined as the "Party of elitist, who don't give a damn about the common 'Joe'".

You know that's bullshit. I know that's bullshit. The media probably also knows that's bullshit. But where is the common man that steps up to the plate and defends progressive ideas? It's great to have economist and folks with more degrees than you can shake a stick at, but our party is made up of more than that.

[anonymous171]

1. We are the party of the common, working man. Unfortunately many here have forgotten that.

[liberalmuse]

2. A large chunk of Democratic voters...

are members of labor unions. Hello??? We don't need to parade them about as if they were some freak anomaly or cute gimmick outside of ourselves. They ARE US. We ARE THEM. Kookookachoo.

[robinlynne]

3. oh we have millions of them on our side!!!!!!

[Vickers]

4. Probably out fixing sombody's plumbing.

:thumbsup:

[Ezlivin]

10. Precisely

My nephew, Joe, is a licensed plumbing contractor who voted for Obama.

If you asked him to do just a tenth of the PR the so-called "Joe the Plumber" has done, he'd have to shutter his business; he'd have no time to actually work at his trade!

[SammyWinstonJack]

19. Exactly! While the RWers scream, "get a job!" Just more projection from the lazy RWers like

Joe 'the plumber'.

[HughBeaumont]

25. That was the funniest thing about the McClown/Palin rallies . . .

. . . a bunch of right wingers, on videotape and without a hint of irony, yelling at protestors to "get a job!".

Er, you're in the same place . . . at the same hour, as THEY are, Toonces.

[brooklynite]

I don't think the average working stiff remembers "Joe the Plumber"

They don't read political blogs, don't watch political cable show and most don't listen to political talk radio. The average working-class guy is as politically disaffected today as they have been in the past. Add to that the fact that when he is in the news, "Joe the Plumber" is never seen actually "plumbing", he's always seen at political events.

[NewJeffCT]

5. They're out there - the media doesn't show them

because a school teacher or coal miner who supports Democrats is not news... it's like dog bites man vs man bites dog.

[SoCalDem]

6. The right needs to use "performers".. we have the real thing, and most are probably too busy..

actually working:)

The right= The Village People (pretend)
The left = The real thing:)

[southernyankeebelle]

7. HA HA HA. THE REAL JOE THE PLUMMER IS WORKING A REAL JOB

[T Wolf]

8. The problem IS media access. The Dems in power get on very little as it is. They do not

want to give up their sparse face time.

Now, if we had the overwhelming exposure that the pukes did, we could have pols and pundits and people on the air and in print putting out the message.

Until that changes, nothing else will.

[H2O Man]

9. Very risky, indeed.

The proof is in the pudding: McCain's powerful showing was a direct result of his powerful use of the Joe the Plumber image, and his defining the democrats as the party of the elite. There is no other way to explain why the masses of common folk supported McCain to the extent they did.

[LeftinOH]

11. We're too busy working & making a difference to go on speaking tours, writing stupid books..n/t

[Boojatta]

12. "We can point out what an idiot he is."

No, that's what makes him a common man. You're talking like an elitist.

[Enrique]

13. Lilly Ledbetter

aka Lilly the Middle Manager. :bounce:

[Warpy]

14. We're all over the place, but the corporate press

is utterly terrified of what we have to say.

[leftstreet]

15. Hmm, yet we keep being reminded that $250k voters went for Obama

Interesting.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. We're enjoying a latte in the Rolls, while the chauffer drives us to Saks.

Haven't you heard?

No time for interviews, busy reading Proust and having my toenails trimmed by the maid.

[maxrandb]

23. Although your post made me laugh

I think it's a good representation of the stereotype the "right-wing-nut-jobs" have been able to create and sell to a great deal of people in this country.

If you're on the left, and you work a minimum wage job, you must go home at night to your condo in the Palisades and watch old French Interpretive Silent Films on NPR while sipping Chardonnay and snacking on fine Beluga Sturgeon caviar.

Hell, I'm a 25 year Navy man, and you'd be surprised at some of the shocked looks I get when I tell folks I'm also a "died-in-the-wool-bleeding-heart" liberal Democrat.

Folks see you in uniform, and they assume you must be a "Rush-inhaling" wing-nut.

Funny, how every liberal I know and hang out with is nothing like the media stereotype the "right" has created.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

27. It's nothing new.

As an ex-GI, working my way through college on the night shift, on food stamps, the then VP Spiro Agnew, referred to guys like me as "effete snobs".

[CTyankee]

17. The whole JTP scenario just screams of a put up job!

It was engineered from the beginning and plotted out carefully.

Dems are out working for a living too hard to have time to play a role like this in such a brazen fashion.

There's be an expose, just wait and see...

[Spike89]

18. Joe's their exception, ours are the few lib CEOs

It is the classic dog bites man non-story when a working man belongs to a union and believes in the basic principles of progressive economic policy. The media tries (and has been pretty successful) in highlighting the social differences where the "working guy" is less progressive. Also, they try and pretend that unions are exclusively union leadership and not the rank and file. You'll never hear them say "the workers are striking in demand for fair pay"...the best you'll hear is "union leaders are seeking wage hikes" but as likely you'll hear "labor leaders roadblock to company survival/profits/compatibility/whatever".

We don't have a Joe the plumber because that IS the Democratic party and acknowledging that truth would pretty much upset the fiction of a divided nation and ruin the premise of most of the "news" shows on cable.

[Still Sensible]

20. Our plumbers are licensed and working. n/t

[Zen Democrat]

21. The left's Joe the Plumber is at work .... or with his family ... and

he doesn't want to be on a stinking talk show, or write a book. Because he's for real.

[terisan]

22. I think we do not have a vibrant Left in America, we have a self-styled Intelligentsia.

which seems to often to express contempt for working and middle-class or make members of same objects of pity.

Joe Biden, footman to the Credit Card companies and now our VP, laughed and made fun of Mr. Wurzelbacher. If Werzelbacher had whimpered and said things were so tough he needed help I think many Democrats would have rushed to comfort him. We respond to objects of pity but not less well-educated citizens who dare to enter into political discourse.

I think you gave the reason--we dis and demean people's educational level, and their economic ideas but seldom see the beams in our own eyes--lack of understanding of markets, emotional- and ad hominem arguments instead of reasoning. Expressions of profound hate and de-valuation of those who do not agree with us.

I would go further and suggest that the self-styled intelligentsia is overly enamored of formal education and judges people by years of schooling and type of educational institutions attended, is quick to call people stupid, idiots, fools, ignorant-.

The problem, I think, is hubris or maybe just a kind of class-consciousness that does not recognize its own limitations.

What if a few DU members had met with Joe Wurzelbacher last Fall and had a conversation with him-listened to him and discussed his situation, offered their arguments in favor of voting Democratic?

I haven't followed the "Joe" story-so I don't know how much of what is said about him is true or hearsay-the way he was treated by Dems has made me look more closely at Dems in office.

[spanone]

24. we don't have anyone that stupid, nor do we need one.

[guitar man]

26. They are actually at work

This "Joe the Plumber" schmuck hasn't picked up a tool or worked a single day since his mug first appeared on tv.