Posts Tagged ‘Toledo’

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.

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