Joe the Plummer?

Posted at 4:13 PM on October 28, 2008 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)

Looking at the number of items indexed by Google for Joe the Plummer, one wonders if things would be different if Joe were, say, a teacher.

Hint: "Plummer" is spelled plumber.

Joe, by the way, endorsed John McCain today.

(h/t: Nikki Tundel)

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Comments (7)

Looks like we could use a lot more Joe the Teachers in this country, and have them focus a little more on spelling!

Posted by Bonnie | October 28, 2008 4:34 PM

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Different, how? Do you mean a person who holds themselves out as a licensed teacher, but isn't licensed?

Or different in regard to how the media and the public would react if it was discovered that the teechur had a serious tax delinquency?

Or?

Posted by Bob | October 28, 2008 4:54 PM

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I mean maybe if what was on the mind of teachers got into the public agenda, the people would know how to spell plumber.

Education used to be a campaign issue and at one time there was agreement on its value.

Those days are gone.

Posted by Bob Collins | October 28, 2008 5:18 PM

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Ejakashun is 4 illeetusts!

Posted by Jim!!! | October 28, 2008 7:58 PM

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To be fair, whenever you make such an obvious spelling error like that in Google, the search engine automatically combines the search results for the misspelled search string with the results for the correctly spelled search string. So it's more like 932,000 results for "Joe the Plummer." Still sad, but not quite as much.

Posted by Donavon Cawley | October 29, 2008 8:51 AM

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I somewhat agree with Bob Collins about education's absence from the campaign trail. You'd think it would be a bigger deal, since NCLB is up for renewal next year.

That said, though, I remember education being a major topic of discussion in the late '90s and Campaign 2000, but I don't recall people regarding that as a golden age of the political system honestly addressing important issues. Rather the reverse. Back then, everyone was saying, "Why isn't the War on Drugs a bigger issue? Why isn't health care a bigger issue? Why isn't Social Security a bigger issue? Why isn't the WTO a bigger issue? Why isn't XYZ a bigger issue?"

There are lots of important issues out there that don't get a lot of coverage, but political discourse, it seems, is capable of focusing on only one or two at a time. It also speaks to the tendency of politicians, once they've passed "big" legislation on a certain topic, to forget about it and move on. Remember McCain-Feingold? "We've done campaign finance reform. What's next?" No Child Left Behind? "We've done education reform. What's next?" Hurricane Katrina? "We're shocked, shocked, that institutional poverty and racism still exists in our country! This signals a new commitment to address these festering wounds! Just let us get through the John Roberts hearings first, and we promise we'll get around to it afterwards." Summer-time gas price increases? "Drag out the energy independence talking points."

Issues and ideas come and go and come back again like the weather. That's just the way it is.

Posted by Chris | October 29, 2008 6:47 PM

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is joe the plmber an idiot or is he a skinhead too? i heard him speak on hannity and colmes and wondered if he had trouble getting through the eighth grade but someone mentioned that after a few years of trying he made it. how would like this guy doing some "scab" plumbing for you, what a LOSER!!!!!!!

Posted by jerry | November 5, 2008 8:54 PM

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