Posts Tagged ‘Joe The Plumber’

Visiting Joe The Plumber’s house

November 2nd, 2008

Toledo, Ohio

“Hadn’t heard of him till last week”, says the lady at 457 Shrewsbury Street. Down a few houses from Toledo’s most famous address: ‘Joe the Plumber’s house.’

“Worked for the U.S. mail till five years ago, and I don’t remember them”, the lady says. Implying of course, that this old(ish) community is mildly under threat by recent infiltrators. Joe, or Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, is one of them.

In the last days of a campaign that’s trying to put the plumbing in after building the house, John McCain is banking heavily on Joe the plumber. In the case of an unlikely victory, the man who discovered Joe may well become secretary of state.

Joe himself might initially be contracted to flush the White House clean of any residual cigars or pretzels blocking a presidential brain, sorry, drain. After the successful completion of this task, there are a number of options. Ranging from succeeding Hank Paulson to an appropriate role in urban planning.

In the case of a loss…? Well there’s always a book deal: ‘Joe Who? How McCain chose the wrong man after choosing the wrong woman.’

‘Joe Who?’ would have been a fair enough question on Shrewsnury Street, Holland, suburb of Toledo. Till the day John McCain invoked Joe (13 times, I’ve been told) in a presidential debate on October 15.

Since then, Joe has become one of the characters of this election. Joining people like Bill Ayers (innocent; former terrorist and Obama associate); Jeremiah Wright (guilty; Obama’s former pastor, of being a christian isotope of Louis Farrakkan, though with different views on Obama); and Sarah Palin (guilty; vice presidential candidate, of opening her mouth).

The multiple mentions have changed both him and his street. The lady at 457 talks about the row of television camera crews and satellite dishes that lined it the previous week, which is otherwise lined by a salubrious row of maple. When on the trees, in end-October, the leaves they burn like little maple-leaf-shaped suns. When on the ground, they need to be swept off the lawn so that there’s a new carpet to sweep tomorrow.

This is what the lady at 457 is doing when we find her. A radio journalist from Holland is there as well, which tells you how widespread, intricate and interconnected the network of the world’s sewage system is. The lady has a distaste for the ‘15 minutes of fame’ idea–more for her street than for Joe.

In the end, she says, “It won’t make any difference at all.” Not many people knew Joe (it follows that even fewer liked him). It’s all become a bit of a joke around here. Seeing two journalist’s walk up and down, a few jobless young adults shout ‘Joe!!’ and run into a house, but it’s got an Obama-Biden yard sign.

At 355, Joe’s house, there’s an SUV parked. No yard sign. (Come to think of it, would there be yard sign in the Palin home in Wassilla?). Joe is out on the trail in Utah, being the showpiece at Republican rallies, and the bell is answered by a tall, fit, middle-aged man and two dogs.

This is ‘Tom’, Joe’s business manager. If you added Dick and Harry, you’d get your average plumbing (or law?) firm.

This business manager thing freaks me out a bit. Two weeks ago, Joe was an employee in a business that had 3 employees at $40,000 a year. Now he’s got a ‘Tom’. Who also keeps house and takes care of the dogs when he’s away.

But consider that there are book deals on offer; a possible country western music recording contract; and the chance of holding elected office. Joe is considering the Congress.

Joe’s house is fairly typical of the neighbourhood: a garage, a little drive, a nondescript screen door with a wire mesh, so we see the business manager divided up into tiny little squares. He won’t open the door. He tells us that we needed to have given notice. Joe isn’t average any more.

In fact, he was below average to begin with if you ask people with plumbing in their DNA, like Tim Antoine, a local taxi driver. Tim’s grandfather was a plumbing inspector, his father was a plumber, his son is a plumber. A certified one, unlike Joe–and is a partner in a business. He earns $85,000 a year, tops.

Joe doesn’t represent the average guy, says Antoine. That guy needs a job before thinking about owning a business.

“Many years I’ve been driving a taxi here in Toledo… I’ve seen a glass plant on the other side of the city, where I grew up in East Toledo there was a glass plant and that glass is now in China. It used to have 5,000 employees, there’s nobody working there right now.” There’s also trouble in the, much larger, automobile industry.

This is a result, Antoine feels of Clinton policies on free trade. So “you’ve got to be cautious” when leaning democratic. But then, while explaining why Joe doesn’t represent him, he says: “I can’t see how any working man can be pro-republican.”

As important on the ballot as the presidential vote in Ohio are the votes to purportedly protect/create jobs. Issue 5, for instance is a bid to remove the state’s 28% interest rate cap on payday lending. (This is America’s version of the village money-lender: interest rates can be close to 400%). The flip side is that 60,000 people reportedly depend on the industry, which isn’t profitable without absurd rates.

There’s issue 6 as well: advertised as the move that will bring 5,000 jobs into Ohio through the gambling business.

These are the concerns of the people on Shrewsbury Street, Ohio. Now that Joe’s out of the way–and the press is gone–they can think about them. They’re thinking: get a job, contemplation about owning a business can follow.

The republicans may have chosen the wrong Joe after all. He isn’t certified. Not to represent either the plumbing community; or his street; or indeed the working man. That guy would love to have Joe’s current position: smiling at rallies, negotiating book and record deals, dealing with the press through a business manager through a screen door.

But that guy also knows that the job is too good to be permanent. After November 4, there could be a load of sewage to clean.

Ohio Facts:

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Ron The Plumber …

October 31st, 2008

Sarasota, Florida

One of the most discussed characters in this Presidential election is a man called Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher–Joe the plumber of Toledo, Ohio which is a swing state. The gentleman who was terrified of Barack Obama’s ’spreading-the-wealth-around tax plan’. And who has became the centrepiece of the McCain campaign ever since the Republican senator repeatedly mentioned him in the debate.

Turns out Joe is actually a little too working class to be affected by the Obama plan. It taxes individuals and businesses with earnings of over $250,000. Joe makes $40,000 annually (but nevertheless aspires to buy a business worth several times his salary). The Obama plan woke him from his American dream rather rudely.

Ron the plumber, of Sarasota, Florida, which is also a swing state, has a very good handle on reality however. Sure, he dreams too: about steady work for himself and his college degree-holding wife. And for the employment to be a little less back-breaking than it is now at the hospital remodelling site he’s at.

He gets on all fours to show me what he does all day. Bunching his shoulders , twisting his neck at acute angles in imaginary closed spaces to simulate how he cuts, welds and rivets pipes that run unseen under neat buildings, keeping them functioning.

He’s on his knees ten hours a day, and they hurt. His clothes are covered with muck. He doesn’t get paid that much–most likely even less than Joe of Toledo.

But it wasn’t always like that. So what happened?

“What happened was the war. George Bush done this. Four years ago ,there was so much work here in Sarasota, work everywhere. Construction, hotels… and then the war started. And all the money had to go there…

“People that are rich, they can survive, but ordinary folks, they can’t. I used to have money in the bank and stuff. Now I’m living week to week.” The emphasis on the last phrase is as heavy as the burden of an unaffordable mortgage payment.

Fortunately, Ron doesn’t own a house he needs to pay for. He lives in a motel, where he makes the rent by doing odd plumbing and maintenance work for the property. If he earned $250,000 a year, he’d be thrilled to pay the extra three per cent.

“My wife’s trying to find a job. She got two college degrees. She can’t find no work. I’m grateful for what I got and I’m lucky… My trade, everybody needs that.” Then he chuckles and says: “When you get up in the morning what do you do? You know, so everybody needs that.”

As essential as it is, plumbing is still affected by constipation–in credit flows. Ron says so: “No new houses being built. So I’m lucky that I got a job with a company at the hospital.”

But he keeps blaming the war for the blighted times. “Osama Bin Laden is laughing at us from his cave or whatever and we’re spending billions in Iraq. It’s been seven years, he’s laughing.”

9/11 is quite close to the bone for people in Sarasota. It was in flight schools in Venice, less than an hour away from here that Mohammad Atta and other hijackers learned to fly aircraft.

Venice is a beautifully designed retirement town built in the 1920s, with wide roads and blue wave beaches, very attractive looking funeral homes, a small airport and several flying schools. But house prices in the area have been very badly hit: they are down an an average by about 40% from their 2007 levels.

Nothing new is being built, so Ron’s got fewer job options. You pass neat homes everywhere, with yard signs that say might say ‘McCain’, ‘Obama’ or ‘For Sale’.

Going by the numbers, if this guy ‘For Sale’ was in the race, he would defintely win–along with his running mate, ‘For Rent’.

Florida facts:

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