Joe the Plumber and me

Joe the Plumber, who McCain spent a lot of time talking about in tonight's debate, apparently earns more than $250,000 if he won't be among the 95% of Americans (81.3% according to Tax Policy Center) getting a tax cut under the Obama Administration. He reportedly worked a lot of 10 - 12 hour days doing skilled blue collar work.

I'll earn less than $40,000 this year while working full time. It was the same last year. I've worked my share of 10 - 12 hour days doing skilled blue collar work too. I still do skilled blue collar work but overtime is heavily frowned upon by the corporate bean counters and the most I'm able to get now is the occasional half hour of overtime.

I don't begrudge Joe the Plumber his current affluence at all. I'm sure he earned every penny of it. But the reality is that it'll take me more than 6 years of labor to equal the bare minimum of what Joe the Plumber will earn this year alone, assuming that he'll make $250,001 on the nose. In that same 6+ years I'll spend matching his yearly salary he will have brought home over $1.5 million.

I'm actually one of the lucky ones. I've accumulated over 20 years of experience in my trade and that allows me to command a wage that my less-skilled peers can only dream of.

The bottom line here is that Joe the Plumber simply isn't representative of the average blue collar working stiff in America.

Maybe I should have taken up plumbing instead. But if I had then someone else would have had to taken my place, and the fundamental fact that Joe the Plumber isn't representative would not have been altered one iota. Someone has to mow the lawns. Someone has to change the sheets in motel rooms. Someone has to run the register at the corner Quicky Mart. Someone has to drive the fork-lifts in warehouses all over this nation. Few if any of those hard-working people earn as much as I am fortunate enough to earn. You can bank on the fact that none of them earn anything remotely close to $250,000 a year!

Enjoy your relative wealth, Joe the Plumber. Millions of Americans can only dream of what it must be like to have that kind of money and the security that goes with it.

Palin resorts to using Tucker Eskew's dirty tricks

I've been wondering when and where we'd see the grimy smudge of Tucker Eskew's fingerprints come to the fore in the Presidential campaign ever since McCain shocked former officials of his 2000 campaign by hiring Eskew to work for Sarah Palin.

You'll recall that in 2000 Tucker Eskew and pals propagated the depraved racist rumor that McCain's adopted Bengali daughter Bridget McCain was actually African-American, with the implication that she was the product of an extramarital affair McCain allegedly had with a black woman and which he should therefore be ashamed of. Eskew's ploy was a desperate attempt on behalf of George W. Bush to regain momentum from McCain after Bush's loss in New Hampshire by appealing to the racist views of South Carolina Evangelicals. But it was also a preview of the tactics Eskew would resort to post-9/11 as a communication strategist for the Bush/Cheney administration.

After withdrawing from the 2000 race McCain gave an interview to Dad Magazine in which he stated the belief that "there is a special place in hell for people like those" who resort to such tactics.

It was with a sense of grim irony that we finally saw the distinctive Eskew fingerprints yesterday in a Palin speech falsely claiming that Obama pals around with terrorists. The Obama campaign's response eerily echoes McCain's own denouncements after feeling the sting of Eskew's racist rumors in 2000.

"No wonder his campaign's announced a plan to turn a page on the financial crisis, distract with dishonest, dishonorable assaults against Barack Obama," the ad says. "Struggling families can't turn the page on this economy and we can't afford another president who's this out of touch."

Writing for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's reader blogs, Rand Koler succinctly describes the desperate situation McCain/Palin find themselves in.

The only course left to him is the road most traveled by his predecessors. His camp must forage in the past for bromides used by Reagan to rally support and engage in the sleazy practice of demagoguery, fear and hate mongering. The self described "mavericks" have leaped into perhaps the oldest political cesspool.

Sarah Palin this weekend has been shrieking that Obama associates with terrorists and is not a real American. CNN looked into these "charges" and found them utterly without merit. It seems a bit odd to dignify such things with inquiry but I applaud CNN's acceptance of the role of responsible medium and refusal to be a propaganda organ.

I trust that, as the McCain camp embraces its end justifying the means abandonment of integrity, that other media will follow CNN's lead and not give demagoguery the appearance of legitimacy by merely reporting its as news.

Tucker Eskew was Assistant Press Secretary for Reagan/Bush '84.

The Chicago Tribune's Mark Silva wonders whether this is merely a failed test-balloon by Palin "testing limits of campaign decency" or just the beginning of it. I suspect it's just the beginning of it.

Apparently John McCain intends to be serving Tucker Eskew iced tea in that "special place in hell."

What happened to John McCain?

Still an Ex-McCainiac

John McCain = agent of change? I used to think so.

When McCain ran in 2000 I didn't just stick my toes in the water to test how comfy it was, I jumped into the deep end of the pool. In fact, my very first website - a previous version of The Independent Voter - was dedicated to rallying Independents to John McCain's candidacy. I still have several "McCain 2000" bumper stickers that I got from the guy who headed up his Oregon campaign after McCain conceded the race to George W. Bush, whose record impressed me as someone unqualified to run either the country or a business.

I remember well the moral outrage I felt when Tucker Eskew and pals led a bunch of fellow "Christians" in South Carolina in suggesting, on behalf of George W. Bush, that McCain's adopted Bengali daughter was really the lovechild from an illicit affair he'd supposedly had with a black woman, and how he ought to be ashamed of her.

I cheered inside when McCain said in a 2000 interview that "I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like (Tucker Eskew)".

An "agent of change" wouldn't have just hired Tucker Eskew for any role. Not even to help his running mate Sarah Palin, which is what Eskew was hired to do.

That's not action of an "agent of change." That's more of the same... literally.

But that's not where he lost me. This is where he lost me:



After the slime and mud heaped on McCain by Bush I just couldn't stomach such an abject display of... groveling. It appeared then and still does that McCain wanted another shot at power more than he wanted to take a principled stand. And as a father of two daughters I can guarantee that if you slimed them like Bush's surrogates slimed McCain's adopted daughter there would be hell to pay, not a pathetic tucked-tail display with someone who clearly cared more about waving to the crowd than in aknowledging such an intimate embrace. The body language of the two men speaks volumes about their motivations and desires at that moment in time.

On the two most important issues right now in America - the economy and the Iraq War - John McCain represents more of the same rather than change.

After adamently opposing the Bush tax cuts when they were first proposed McCain now promises more of the same.

John McCain supported and voted for the fiscally and morally disasterous Iraq War. He continues to this day to support it. But of more relevance to this election, McCain has continually echoed President Bush's rhetoric in rejecting and ridiculing any sort of timetable for getting our brave soldiers out of that ongoing mess even though Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki has expressed agreement with Barack Obama's 16-month timeframe for withdrawel - which McCain then turned around and agreed with.

That my friends is more of the same obstinate adherence to preexisting beliefs rather than anything resembling either independent thinking or change.

Ultimately, John McCain has himself made the case for why he represents more of the same,

"No. No. I--the fact is that I'm different but the fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush."

There you have it - more of the same failed policies and inept leadership. His highly honorable actions and choices during the Vietnam War no more qualify him to be President now than he considered John Kerry's to qualify him to be President in 2004.

John McCain = agent of change? His own record of flip-flops screams otherwise.

New poll shows why Sen. Smith trying to influence Dem primary

Now we have hard evidence showing why Gordon Smith has singled out Jeff Merkley in his latest attack ad with the Democratic Primary still 10 days away - a new poll: Merkley and Smith in statistical tie, Novick lags behind

One of the most compelling aspects to this new poll is that it's a General Election match-up. Which means that it reflects all Oregonians rather than just Democrats as the Primary Election polls have done.

Steve Novick's supporters have consistently argued that his quirky, acidic style will match up better against Gordon Smith in the G.E. But this new poll, especially the trend lines it reveals, shows that it's Jeff Merkley who matches up better against Gordon Smith. Which is why Smith is trying to influence the Dem Primary.

My one second of fame... in a political ad

Ever so briefly at the very beginning there's a shot of me talking to Jeff.

Steve Nader takes another shot at Democrats

Steve Nader... er... Novick indulged his inner Nader yet again by taking a shot at Jeff Merkley over at Politicker OR. But that was just a smoke screen intended for what he presumes to be a gullible public. Really it was a veiled shot at Barack Obama.

(Sshhhh... we're not supposed to be intelligent enough to have figured that out for ourselves)

The subject of Steve's latest Nader moment was Social Security.

He invoked a report released yesterday by the trustees of Social Security and Medicare, which indicated that benefit payments will start exceeding Social Security tax revenues in 2017. If the government repays the money is (sic) has borrowed from the Medicare and Social Security trust funds with interest, the Social Security fund will be solvent until 2041, albeit unable to pay full promised benefits.

Novick is pessimistic about the possibility.

"Can we really expect the Federal government to repay on time, and with interest, what it has borrowed from Social Security and Medicare? Not under current policies without savage cuts to other essential services," he said in a statement.

Note the very last sentence in Novick's quote there because it's central to understanding his game here - "Not under current policies without savage cuts to other essential services." Current policies = George W. Bush's policies. New President = new policies. Right? Okay, moving on...

In Steve's "endorsement" of Barack Obama he summed up his reasoning by saying that he'd "rather be disappointed in new ways, rather than the same old ways." Having already called Obama "sorely lacking in fiscal responsibility" his projection of being disappointed in Obama begins to appear even more consistent if one connects the dots.

• We're going to have a new President and the odds are heavily in favor if it being a Democrat. With Clinton facing virtually impossible delegate math, the odds are that our next Prez will be Obama.



• Novick admits that every president since 1983 has raided Social Security except for Bill Clinton (in his second term).



• Guess who the presidents other than Bill Clinton have been since 1983? REPUBLICANS. Namely Reagan, Papa Bush and of course the ill-begotten Shrub.



• So rather than aknowlege that the principle SSI problem for the last 25 years has been Republican Presidents, Novick pulls a Nader and lumps everyone together, glibly sweeping aside the fact that the only President who has resisted raiding SSI was, by his own admission, a Democrat.



• When Novick asks "Can we really expect the Federal government to repay on time, and with interest, what it has borrowed from Social Security and Medicare?" He is basically projecting that Obama will govern like a Republican. Which is actually consistent of him since he's already accused Obama of "unjustifiable political timidity".



• Now we see his whole "I'd rather be disappointed in new ways" quip about Obama in a fuller context. So much for his whole "speak truth to power" shell game.



• Unsurprisingly, Novick has leveled a similar charge at Jeff Merkley. Jake Weigler, Novick's campaign manager has been backpeddling furiously to explain his bosses flip-flop on Obama. Which largely explains why Steve is using Jeff Merkley as a surrogate now instead of flailing away directly at Obama.

Back to the Politicker OR piece,

Steve Novick today equated Jeff Merkley and Sen. Gordon Smith's views on Social Security, and emphasized his own willingness to advocate for measures, that, according to his campaign, will "prevent a federal fiscal train wreck and exposed the intellectual bankruptcy of both Gordon Smith's and Jeff Merkley's approach to federal finances."

That's just what you'd expect from Steve Nader... er... Novick. Lump 'em all together and arrogantly presume that nobody but your inner circle understands your tactic. Many of us understand all too well that it's just another reflection of Steve's Naderite selfish personal agenda.