It still blows me away that the GOP recently sought policy advice from Joe The Plumber...

[Wetzelbill]

I could see the gimmick during the election, it was a last ditch shot at winning, hey they had nothing and had to give something a shot.

But that he is still around and they sought him out for advice recently is insane. Talk about being out of ideas. The GOP has so concentrated on image and slogans for so long they aren't even a remotely serious policy party.

It's so stupid, I can't quite understand why anybody would think it was a good idea in any way shape or form. As far as I can tell, the only person that it might make sense to is Joe The Plumber.

[murielm99]

1. Well, Rush Limbaugh is their leader.

If they are allowing themselves to be led by a drug-addled radio "entertainer," it stands to reason that they would take advice from a faux plumber.

[backscatter712]

2. I blogged about the economic wisdom of Joe The Plumber.

Excuse me while I pimp my blog again.

http://www.meldroc.com/?p=371

The Republicans throwing filibuster hissy-fits in the Senate have decided to use the economic wisdom of Samuel Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe the Plumber”. After throwing trillions of dollars of taxpayer money at the war in Iraq, and gleefully throwing 700 billion dollars more to banks under TARP, all of the sudden, they’ve become deficit hawks and have started howling about all the big government spending. They seemingly follow the advice of a man who isn’t an economist and isn’t a plumber.

We have our choice. Do we follow the economic advice of Nobel-Prize-winning economists like Paul Krugman, or do we continue the same disastrous policies of George W. Bush, now being sold by a plumber turned country-singer turned war-correspondent turned economic-guru?

...

But let’s take a look at the wisdom of the Republican party’s latest economic advisor, Samuel Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe the Plumber”. That’s right, he’s going to be a featured speaker at the GOP’s latest pow-wow, and he’ll be talking about the economy. Specifically, he thinks the stimulus package is a bad idea, and a waste of money. He would have our government use its resources on tax cuts instead. Of course, in order to be given the great honor of imparting his great economic acumen to the Republican Party’s elite, Joe the Plumber must have earned his stripes. Did he earn a Ph. D. in economics? No. Did he win a Nobel Prize? No. Did he even take a college macroeconomics course? As far as I can tell, it doesn’t look like he even went to college. When he confronted Barack Obama on the campaign trail, he got his facts wrong - with his stated income, his taxes would have gone down under Barack Obama’s plan. Of course, that’s assuming that his stated income and profession was correct - he isn’t even a real plumber.

No. Joe the Plumber is not an economic authority, he’s an idiot. Specifically, he’s the Republican Party’s useful idiot - his job is to peddle their economic agenda. That policy comes under many names - Reaganomics, supply-side economics, trickle-down economics. George H. W. Bush famously called it “Voodoo economics” when he ran for President against Ronald Reagan. But my favorite name for the Republican’s economic practices, which I heard mentioned on Thom Hartmann’s radio show, is the “Horse and Sparrow theory.” In other words, if you feed enough oats to the horse, some of those oats come out of the horse’s rear end and feed the sparrows.

In other words, Republican politicians would funnel all the money in this country to their rich billionaire golfing buddies, and leave the rest of us to eat shit.

[Wetzelbill]

7. That's some good stuff.

[malaise]

23. That's very good

Thanks.

[terisan]

3. Axtually I would prefer this plumber or most others write the Bank bailout instead of Geithner

I think they would have at least focused more on the rescuing the homeowners instead of the failed banks.

[Ikonoklast]

21. You understand that if all defaulted mortgages were made good,

the banking system would still be in serious threat of collapse, right?

The homeowners cannot be 'rescued' if money stops flowing through the system.

[Bandit]

28. Home mortgages are only a small part of the problem

Republicans have made it seem like the ONLY problem in America is failed mortgages.. You need to do some serious study of the problem and then maybe you would want someone a little more educated than Joe the Plumber to make these decisions.

[poverlay]

4. Do you have a link or some more story? Please? I vaguely remember reading that, but I don't know

any of the particulars. It would be a fun "instant conversation with a repug winner".

[Wetzelbill]

11. Here is several

He spoke at the Conservative Working Group recently.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=%22Joe%20The%20Plumber%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

[poverlay]

18. Oh thanks so much. I'll check it out right now. n/t

[B o d i]

5. It's highly ironic. Remember the 'plumbers' involved in Watergate?

"Joe"'s uncle (Robert, iirc?) Wurzelbacher was one of them.

He's also got ties to the Keating Five.


Something to think about. Google away.

[jeff30997]

6. You're kidding,right ?

If not,then they are even more pathetic that I ever imagined they could be.And I have a pretty good

imagination.

[Wetzelbill]

10. oh I wish I was

Politically its good for Dems, but then I think that if Republicans are so effed up and dangerous that they have to go to JTP for advice, well, that's not good.

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/02/03/joe-the-plumber-now-advising-the-gop-on-the-economy/

[2Design]

8. yes that proved without a doubt how stupid they are to believe someone

who lied about everything

[JI7]

9. they also think Palin would have won and McCain was the one who dragged the ticket down

[Hello_Kitty]

12. Shit. These are the people who picked Sarah Palin to be McCain's VP

They ain't all there, ya know?

[Wetzelbill]

13. I guess you would hope they would learn something

right? lol Could that many people have lived under powerlines and eaten paint chips as children? There has to be some explanation.

So how have you been? I like the new name! :hug:

[Hello_Kitty]

15. I've been okay.

Unemployed, but I'm putting in resumes and crossing my fingers.

[Wetzelbill]

16. same here

I was essentially offered a job last summer, but it took forever for the application process to open up. I'll be sending my resume packet off here in the next day or too. I'll cross my fingers for both of us, lol. :)

[brettdale]

14. Once again they will play each election

On emotion and be void of any facts.

[izquierdista]

17. Better than getting plumbing advice

Why do I get the feeling that if I drank from a tap that Joe installed, I would be getting stomach cramps?

[ezgoingrl]

19. Considering that their party is in the toilet,

I'd say they went to the right place. Oh wait, he's not a real plumber. Oh well, stupid is as stupid does?:shrug:

[burning rain]

20. He's the embodiment of "What's Wrong With Kansas?" by Thomas Frank.

They have nothing substantial to offer working-class folks, so
they go with crankish populist backlash politics / culture war
stuff.

[girl gone mad]

22. I don't think they're seeking policy advice so much as..

trying to hone their brainwashing techniques. Joe the Plumber is the ideal Republican moran voter. A lower middle class guy who votes against his own economic and social interests for reasons related to religion and bigotry. Republicans are desperate to study Joe and find out what made him so gullible.

[tom_paine]

24. It makes sense if you realize that this Greater Depression is going to require Bushie Brownshirts

and probably a lot of them.

Who better to 'round up the skinheads than a celebrity-barely-concealed-thug-Nazi-type like Joe the Plumber.

Hell, during and after the Greater Depression (if that is what's coming, and it certainly looks like it), maybe Joe the Plumber will actually bethe Chief Brownshirt, like Ernst Rohm.

Of course, it won't be called Brownshirts. Not THIS TIME around.

That would be bad marketing and rebranding strategy on the part of the Bushies.

Perhaps they'll callthemselves by a nice focus-group test-marketed AMERICAN name, like...say...

Volunteers in Police Service (VIPS)?

http://www.citizencorps.gov/programs/vips_detailed.shtm

[Blue_Tires]

25. they aren't going to REALLY follow any advice the fake plumber gives

he's just a mascot...a showpiece

[Wetzelbill]

29. they already are following almost exactly what he said

But that could be because they all just believe the same thing.

[Stevenmarc]

26. Who better to float a talking point to people that lack critical thinking skills

They hand him the notes and if the shit hits the fan then Joe is in the line of fire, he's the canary in the coal mine.

[Odin2005]

27. They're imploding.

[scheming daemons]

30. They're intellectually bankrupt.... it was him or Limbaugh