I have an uncle Joe. He's a nurse, and he's good at what he does, and he votes in a swing state, and though he once made about the best joke I've ever heard about John Ashcroft I have no idea how he's voting this year.
I have a niece named Johannah. She's too young to vote, but her parents are fervent, Feingold-voting Democrats who have moved recently and registered to vote in Ohio. Other than the occasional Facebook trade-off of photos and birthday wishes, I haven't talked with her or them about the debates, and I probably won't.
My father's middle name is Joseph. He doesn't vote because he's sure that no one's listening to him. I have stopped trying to convince him otherwise because our political views are so different -- one of us bases his current views on the fear of an Islamic fundamentalist becoming president -- that fact-based argumentation does not work. We carefully avoid most political conversations unless one of us has had too much to drink.
I can think of at least five other Joes in my life, and right at this moment, their positions on taxation and health care and the Iraq war matter to me much less than the positions of one other Joe who I've met only once, and then very briefly:
This isn't because I don't value the judgments of many of the Joes I know. It's because at the end of the day, I make up my own mind, and I want badly to believe that most of America is still capable of that, too.
The focus on one guy as a representative of the body politic is stupid. Talking to Joe (whose name is actually Sam) the Plumber (who is actually not licensed as such) in a debate demeans the idea of a debate. I don't tune in to hear John McCain pandering to a single voter. I tune in to see two candidates actually talking about issues, outlining their differences and maybe even highlighting some of their agreements, and for the fourth time this year, last night I was disappointed.
Joe the Plumber doesn't represent America. He doesn't represent small business owners. He doesn't, as far as I can tell, even accurately represent plumbers. I'm not saying this as an attack on Mr. Wurzelbacher -- I'm saying this as an attack on McCain, and even a bit on Obama, for promoting the Everyman Idea. The problem with appointing someone to be the representative of anything is that inevitably, that comparison isn't going to line up. This was a stupid tactic when it was overdone by Al Gore in the 2000 debates, and it's a stupid tactic now. Does anyone remember George McKinney? Here's his introduction:
GORE: There is a man here tonight named George McKinney from Milwaukee. He's 70 years old, has high blood pressure, his wife has heart trouble. They have an income of $25,000 a year. They can't pay for their prescription drugs. They're some of the ones that go to Canada regularly in order to get their prescription drugs. Under my plan, half of their costs would be paid right away. Under Governor Bush's plan, they would get not one penny for four to five years and then they would be forced to go into an HMO or to an insurance company and ask them for coverage, but there would be no limit on the premiums or the deductibles or any of the terms and conditions.
George McKinney, who I believe was an Edwards delegate in Wisconsin in 2004, is probably now 78. I wonder how his retirement is going. I wonder if his income has increased. I wonder who he's voting for.
You know what else I wonder? What happened to little Caley Ellis?
GORE: The guy that served us lunch gave me a letter today. His name is Randy Ellis. He has a 15-year-old daughter named Caley, who is in Sarasota High School. Her science class was supposed to be for 24 students. She's the 36th student in that classroom. They sent me a picture of her in the classroom. They can't squeeze another desk in for her, so she has to stand during class. I want the federal government, consistent with local control and new accountability, to make improvement of our schools the number one priority so Caley will have a desk and can sit down in a classroom where she can learn.
She's 23 by now, and I wonder what she's made of herself. Did she attend a standing-room-only college? Did she enlist in the military? Have a child, get married? Vote in 2004? Has anyone actually been paying attention to Caley Ellis since 2000?
These allusions to "regular" Americans are stupid for one big reason: they are blatant political ploys. No one believes that John McCain is going to loan Sam-Joe the Not-Plumber the money to pay his back taxes or buy his own business, even if he does miraculously get elected president. No one even believes John McCain or Barack Obama was talking to Joe last night, just as I'm pretty sure Al Gore doesn't have weekly check-ins with McKinney or Ellis. Politicians trot out everyday Americans -- Joe Six-Packs or Joe Plumbers or George McKinneys -- to show that they're in touch with the folks on the ground, in the hopes of convincing some other folks on the ground to side with them. It's shorthand. It's he likes me, so you should like me math. I'd help him, so I'd help you. It's like a celebrity endorsement without the celebrity.
I don't endorse Barack Obama -- I endorse his ideas. I don't want to vote for Joe Biden -- I want to vote for his plans. I'm tired of hearing undecided voters say that they can't decide who to vote for because they aren't hearing concrete plans from anyone. The only way to say that is if you're consciously trying not to know what's going on. Both candidates have Web sites on which they outline their platforms and put up text of their most recent policy speeches. McCain, Obama, and Biden all have voting records available through http://senate.gov. Voting for them based on their plans or panders to a single man is about as smart as voting for someone based on the color of their tie.
When you make a single person your target demographic, you encourage the idea that governance is simple, that all plans can be explained in sound-bites, that it's possible to help everyone and hurt no one, that by solving the problems of a businessman in Ohio you can also solve the problems of a businessman in Idaho, New Hampshire, Florida, and Oregon. It's not true. Everyone lives different lives. A guy in Ohio who has a small business, two kids, and $13,000 in college debt is going to need a different solution than a single guy in Idaho with a $13,000 Roth IRA, even if they have the same income this year. Someone's going to have less money under each one of these men; someone's going to have more. The tax code is complex for just this reason; public policy is sometimes impenetrable for just this reason. Everyone needs a different solution, and no one's going to get everything they want.
Governing is hard. Government is complex. Everyone I see who says they're still undecided seems to be waiting for Barack Obama or John McCain to stand up and say, "Here is what you believe and here is how I would specifically address your situation." Grow up, undecided voters. Find information on your own and make up your own mind. Stop waiting for the campaigns to do the work for you.
And CNN, get off Joe's lawn.TIP:
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Catherine Forsythe
Writer to the Stars
Emily Holleman
Iron Skillet
Leslie Harpole
old new lefty
Salon.com
Comments
When Open Salon was first introduced I feared that the quality and the level of intelligence of the writing would be somewhat lower than that of more "professional" journalism - boy was I mistaken. The writing on OS is more insightful and thoughtful than 95% of what passes for professional journalism in America today. In a word: fearless.
I, in fact, found the "ordinary folks" speaking at the Democratic convention quite moving. That was probably because their narratives wove together to buttress the reality of our current condition as a nation and the Democratic Party's message.
On the other hand, I found Joe the Plumber incredibly offensive, because a simple reality check would show that Joe the Plumber did not exist. And if it had been Arthur the Anesthesiologist making more than $250,000 wanting to buy out his LLC practice ( a much more likely probability) the trope would not work.
WOOF
I think it is quite different to sprinkle examples throughout a discussion (i.e., name drop one or two every-day people as examples to illustrate how a policy implementation might affect their situation) than it is to somehow load up the rhetoric and pile it on to one guy (using him 21 + 4 times to blatantly pander) as some sort of symbol.
I do think it would be just as effective and less damaging to use hypothetical examples and first names only.
Re: mishima's point - totally agree. That is the irony of the joe the plumber bit. I don't really see a lot of people seeing themselves in his shoes - yeah, I'm about to go from making $50K to buying a company next year and worrying about taxes after I'm making $250K. It is just plain silly.
But, I would like to know how a self-employed person buying independent health care would fare under each of their plans. Do I care whether she is Nancy Nurse or he is Peter Programmer? Of course not, but I can see where putting a name to the "case study" helps construct the dialogue.
As for endorsing their ideas vs. their plans, it's funny. I somewhat disagree with you on that one. Maybe we should debate this further. I think too often people worry about what the plan is when the President won't get their plan, they'll get a regurgitated form of it. What I want to know is "how do they make their decisions" and so I look to the plan as a mirror of their thought process. What do they value? In isolation, many will say (because voters insist on it) they value everything, but in the plan you'll see the truth because necessarily choices are made. My main issue is climate change (it's not that I think the fiscal crisis unimportant, but that I consider climate change more important) and while there is a general plan, it's not being talked about, and it will change, so there's not much there. I have to infer from how they talk about their plans. I like McCain's plan to build nuclear plants, except he's not building enough of them and he's not building them faster and most of all I think it's just accidental he suggested that, not part of some reliable reasoning process. So tomorrow he could just as well do something else. Obama proposes a lot of other ways of doing things that I like but am not sure will come to fruition fast enough, but I think he'll figure that out and will make new plans, because I trust his judgment and his ability to be self-critical and dynamic.
There is a difference between speaking to people about the way things are and speaking ideologically, trying to use someone as part of an indoctrination process. Of course, all campaigns seek to infuse their audiences with a certain understanding of the world, and the truth of it as it may be seen by reasonable people, and most cross over the line into manipulating the truth for their ends.
But the use of 'Joe the plumber' as an iconic debate point was a different kind of crossing the line: it was in part fictionalizing the man's situation, tempting the media to go an examine him, to find out if McCain's claims about a non-business-owning plumber were really true, or relevant.
And it rested on a false premise: that the only money that man will ever see is whatever money he's paying to the federal government, but what if the economic plan being pushed by Sen. Obama actually helps reinvigorate the economy, puts more money in the hands of consumers, so that people who own plumbing businesses can charge more, earn more, have more business broadly and even after paying 3% more in taxes on their income above $250,000, take more home as well?
There is no way around the fact that McCain wasn't just telling Joe's story and letting it speak for itself; he was using the man's name and profession as a bludgeon to try to score rhetorical points he cannot make on his own. That, with all due respect, is where I think the everyman trick goes wrong, when it's a trick and distorts the facts.
Thumbs up.
CCC, you know, I found the "ordinary folks" at the convention really moving, too, and I've been thinking about why -- the difference is, I think, that hearing someone stand up and say why they specifically support Obama is different to me than hearing Obama or McCain say why someone should support him. You know? And you've hit it on the head, there is certainly a place for everyman as a symbol in some ways... but we've reached a climax of exaggeration with it, where Soccer Moms and Joe Six Packs and Plumbers are supposed to stand too grandly for everyone who shares any of those attributes.
Kent, I think we actually agree on the ideas v. plans bit for the most part. I do recognize (though I didn't get into it here) that the candidates' plans at this point are merely symbolic of their priorities and do not, to any real extent, show what they'll accomplish once in office. But reading through the plans does reveal where they stand on issues in clear, mostly concise way that most voters could understand and probably trust. It's direct speak as opposed to filtered speak -- and while I would prefer to read about a candidate's experience and position through the New York Times or a similar organization that's really done its homework, I think a lot of undecided voters claim they aren't getting enough information "directly" from the candidates. So -- plans and platforms are the best means of that, because they're highly honed hope lists.
Your comment made me wonder if I'd be as angry about the Joe usage if it had turned out that everything McCain said about the guy was true, if he was a businessman about to make $250,000 and possibly was worried about a tax cut and all of that, and I think I still would be. It still comes down to this idea of oversimplification of issues, and the implication that one man can stand for all in something as complicated as taxes, but both sides are guilty of that problem in every election.
The "everyman" is a rhetorical device that has a long history in American politics because it works. People want and need to connect with the candidate before they will vote for them. That is human nature, and the "everyman" device works because it makes that connection.
I'm not voting for Barrack Obama because I like his ideas, though, by and large, I do like many of them. I'm voting for him because I like him, because I feel a connection to him. That connection is immensely more powerful than any policy he commits to paper. That doesn't make me stupid, and it certainly doesn't mean I don't think for myself. It just means I'm human and I want and need a human connection.
We can't all be policy wonks.
So you've got to bring it home to them. The way you do that is by using a story of someone who's dealing with a problem that your plans can help address.
Let's say you're pushing for more funding for student loans and grants so that more people can go to college. Well, you don't just say, under my plan, three million more students will be able to afford college.
What you do is say, let me tell you the story about Jane Smith. She's a good student and has good SATs. Her parents are a electrician and a teacher. They just don't make enough to send her to school, so right now, Jane's not going to be able to go to college so that she can follow in her mother's footsteps and teach.
Under my plan, Jane would get x dollars a year in a tax free grant and that would allow her to go to college. My plan will give three million Jane Smiths the chance to attend college.
It matters little to me whether "Joe the plumber" is a real person or an absolute fiction. My immediate reaction upon hearing that phrase come out of the candidate's mouth, was that I was being pandered to as a dimwit. The names & details of the various "average citizens" stories used in these campaigns may fade, but the feeling of resentment still lingers.
I, for one, would much rather hear a candidate talk over my head and challenge me to keep up, than to be patronized like a temperamental child.
I think what people need to come to terms with is that voting for a candidate is like making decisions about anything else: we all do it differently. I have to admit to thinking that there are more logical and less logical ways of going about it and that I'm guilty of engaging in both. Why didn't I like Hillary? Just didn't. Didn't trust her. Wasn't anything about her plans or her thought process. Just didn't get a good vibe from her. Between McCain and Obama? McCain and I have vastly different ideas about how the world (or at least this country) ought to be run.
Ever have that feeling about someone? You're OK with what they're saying, but you get a weird feeling about them and just can't warm up to them. A lot of times it's a good idea to listen to that little voice and at least try to suss out why you're getting that feeling.
Tony, I actually agree with you that campaigning is akin to giving a sales pitch -- but where I think this has failed in every recent campaign is that what we're seeing isn't an actaul advertisement for goods or services but a fictionalization of what's being offered by presenting an unrepresentative sample. It's like how in diet commercials, they have to say, "Results not typical." In politics, recently, no one has stood up and said, "but Joe the Plumber isn't typical," or the like. I don't discount the power of example; I discount the truthfulness of oversimplification.
Angie, I think you make an excellent point about decision-making, that everyone comes to their decisions differently. I like that your process includes investigating the "why" behind the instinctive feeling of distrust -- nicely phrased.
And, like Angie, I appreciate the civil discourse here, folks. Thanks for the kind comments.
Again, well parsed, cogent thinking. Using an everyman for an attempt at rhetorical advantage won't stop however. It's too easy, but more importantly, people want iconography instead of intelligence. People grasp symbols to bolster a priori convictions, be it religion or politics, or even civil religion. There's usually enough evidence to discredit all idols on some, if not many points. And, this is not much different than using straw man talking points. Use imagery, regardless of what is in fact ephemera, to bludgeon as a means of circumventing thought, or even truth.
Thanks again SS.
The world is rhetorical. The world is political. Those are the waters in which we swim. The two are inextricably linked. Both can be used for good or evil, and all shades in between those extremes. Your own piece, ironically, makes use of numerous emotional appeals to make its argument. That is unavoidable and necessary if you ever hope to construct a winning argument. Those are the arguments that stick with us. We don't like to admit that, but it is, as I see it, is about as close to a fundamental truth about our species as one can get.
The 'everyman' is the sum of all of us,and in this case, expressed by each of our votes. Only then does he exert his influence in a tangible way.
I wonder how many of McCain's houses Joe has worked on?
Rated/appreciated.
First discussing Joe Sixpack, Hockey moms and the like is, of course, marketing. But what is the target audience? Also, is the marketing of McCain attempting to essentially reduce us to the lowest common denominator, especially when the lowest common denominator is negative emotions such as racial hate, fear of the unknown and economic class warfare? Why does it seem that McCain is attempting to draw out the worst of our collective nature and Obama is attempting to draw out the best in all of us?
Additionally Saturn’s piece and the follow-on discussion also made me mentally visualize both McCain and Bush, and perhaps more, Republican presidential candidates being manipulated by the hand of some unseen person as illustrated in the movie poster of the classic move The Godfather. Of course that brings up the question of who holds the strings, especially since I wonder how anyone as essentially unquestioning and anti-intellectual as George Bush could have ever made it to the presidency.
condemning aspects of the present plutocratic oligarchy is emotionally understandable, but it is not constructive. you can't get rational, fair management of society from where we are.