Posted by Jed Lewison on Thu Oct 16, 2008 at 8:52 AM Pacific

McCain's Lame October Surprise: Joe, The Right-Wing Loon

This will hopefully be the last I have to say about Joe Wurzelbacher, the plumber occupying way too much of our national mindspace this morning, and I'll do it in bullet point format.

  • Yes, his taxes would go down under Obama. (He makes less than $250k.)
  • No, his taxes would not go up under Obama. (The cost of the firm he's seeking to buy is $250K, not it's annual revenues. Nobody earning less than $250K will have their taxes hiked.)
  • No, he's not undecided, and he never was.
  • His full legal name appears to be Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher.
  • He is a registered Republican and voted in the GOP primary in March.
  • His first registration was with the right-wing Natural Law Party (according to a press conference he held earlier this morning).
  • Also at his press conference he said that he was sad when he found out he was born in Toledo because it meant he was a "Yankee."
  • He's fond of calling Obama a socialist.
  • His story about his plumbing firm is not consistent. For starters, he now says the cost of the firm is $250K, which means under Obama's plan he'd get a tax cut.
  • He also told Obama that he'd been a plumber for 15 years. He's 34. He also says he has served in the military. So unless he was a military plumber, something doesn't add up.
  • He appears to have spent time as a resident of both Arizona and Alaska
  • Finally, yes, I'm aware of the speculation that he is related to Charles Keating's son-in-law, Robert M. Wurzelbacher of Cincinnati, Ohio. That Wurzelbacher spent 40 months in prison as part of John McCain's Keating Scandal, but even if they are related, I have trouble believing McCain was aware of the connection.
McCain's Lame October Surprise: Joe, The Right-Wing Loon

This will hopefully be the last I have to say about Joe Wurzelbacher, the plumber occupying way too much of our national mindspace this morning, and I'll do it in bullet point format.

  • Yes, his taxes would go down under Obama. (He makes less than $250k.)
  • No, his taxes would not go up under Obama. (The cost of the firm he's seeking to buy is $250K, not it's annual revenues. Nobody earning less than $250K will have their taxes hiked.)
  • No, he's not undecided, and he never was.
  • His full legal name appears to be Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher.
  • He is a registered Republican and voted in the GOP primary in March.
  • His first registration was with the right-wing Natural Law Party (according to a press conference he held earlier this morning).

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