Joe the plumber is america's next top political football. I found this invocation to give me a little sense of trepidation, mainly for reasons Bowers outlines here. It seems to tap into the Reagan-era shit that's worked really well. I'm personally totally non-plussed, but it makes me nervous when people start attacking Obama for wanting to "spread the wealth around."

But it appears that maybe America is waking up to the fact that this has been happening, except the "spread" has a decidedly upward drift. As one pundit put it, "the rich have been strip-mining the middle class" for the past twenty five years.

And Joe? Well, who knows if it will matter in the non-reality-based community that is the world of Cable News, but it looks like an EPIC FAIL of a campaign strategy:

So Joe (whose name is Sam) the Plumber (who isn't a plumber) was used by McCain to attack Obama's tax proposal, though Joe/Sam actually pays less tax under Obama (if he actually got around to paying his taxes.)

Brought to you by the same people who think character attacks are more important than issues.

That's compounded by the fact that the ad McCain released (from professionals) prominently features the word "Everbody?" in one of its fear-factor jump-cuts.

This explains a lot. Lolcats are running the McCain campaign.