At my local McCain-Palin Victory 2008 headquarters, down the road from a collection of big box stores and slightly dangerous-looking motels, a man I'd never met called me "Joe the Plumber" while he vigorously shook my hand.

He'd evidently overheard me asking Candace, the office's volunteer coordinator, if Obama's tax hikes for the rich would hurt someone like me.

I work for myself, I explained, and wanted to know what would happen if if I made $250,000, but had expenses of, say, $200,000. Would I be taxed at $50,000 or $250,000? (Disclaimer: I'm more of a five-figure type guy.) This Joe the Plumber guy had got me thinking, I said.

Candace reassured me that whatever I brought in, that would be the amount I'd be taxed at.

"Where's the incentive to make more money, then?" I asked her, rhetorically.

"Exactly," said Candace, a den mother-type in her 40s, with straight, neck-length auburn hair, wearing a red and white striped sweater. "Where do they think all the jobs come from in this country?" It was the wealthiest Americans who drive our country's economic engine, she argued. Without their orders for more and bigger houses, SUVs, and private jets, (or massages and hair cuts), how would any of us find work?

Then she used the yacht analogy -- when people get rich, they will need more yachts.

"Who do you think is going to build all the boats?" she said.

This was my second day volunteering for the McCain campaign, in my effort to become a Republican for a few weeks before the election. My goal is to know why they think the way they do. Though polls show the nation leaning toward Obama, I still want to understand the 45 percent or so who will still vote for McCain. In the event that McCain wins the election, I want to understand why.

On my drive to headquarters that day, I decided to bone up by listening to right-wing radio. The hosts were abuzz with Joe the Plumber talk, about how Obama's tax plan would redistribute the wealth (he did use words to that effect) from people making $250,000 to the rest of us. This was bad, the hosts argued, because it would take away the incentive for people to make more money. One of the hosts offered up a better plan: the poorest people pay the most taxes, say 35 percent. As your income increases, your tax rate decreases. The richest among us would pay no tax at all. He called it "a progressive tax plan, but upside-down." (The dictionary has another word for it: "regressive".)

So with Joe the Plumber on the brain, I headed into the McCain Victory office to continue my experiment.

When I arrived, Candace gave me a job making calls to McCain supporters who'd requested an absentee ballot. I was to ask them whether they got their ballot, and if they'd sent theirs in yet.

It was a mind-numbingly dull task. While I dialled numbers and left messages on answering machines, I eavesdropped on a number of conversations around the office.

I listened to a retirement age couple at the brochure-folding table talk about tax policy with a stream of visitors coming into the office. The husband complained that some people don't pay any taxes. In fact, the government gives them money for each child they have. He related a story about handing out tax rebates to poor people while working for an H&R Block in the area. The office he worked in was in a black neighborhood, where women would come in to pick up their child tax credit checks of a thousand dollars or so every spring. One woman had sent a man to pick up her check. "It was her pimp," the man said.

When I stopped making calls, I wandered over to the main room. I bought a $3 McCain-Palin campaign button. Then I struck up a conversation with Candace about taxes. When H&R Block man heard me say I was self-employed, he came over and shook my hand. "You're Joe the Plumber? Great to meet you."

"Are you a plumber?" Someone asked. I almost said, "I'm Joe the Writer," but I resisted. I'd learned from previous encounters that Republicans don't like journalists (they're kind of like community activists), so I tried couching my job title. "I run a writing service", I said. "I don't make $250,000, but I'd like to." Everyone laughed.

"Do you like Sarah Palin?" Candace asked.

"Oh yeah, I love her," I said. This was a few days before she said to a crowd she was glad to be in a "pro-America" part of America.

"I like her too. You know why?" Candace asked. "Because she's an outsider. She hasn't been in the Senate for 32 years. Where's the change in that?"

I assumed she was referring to Sen. Biden's years of service in the Senate. I'm not sure whether she realized McCain had been in the Senate for 26 years. Candace then talked about Obama.

"Did you know that Obama used to be called Barry, until he went to Harvard, then all of a sudden he was 'Barack'? Isn't that a coincidence?" Candace asked, her eyebrow raised. Earlier, I'd heard her mention this to someone else: "He was called Barry until he started hanging out with his Muslim friends." The Muslim thing. Again.

"His minister is building a $10 million house inside a white, gated community," she continued. "It was on Hannity. They flew over in a helicopter and showed it. My minister lives in a modest, three bedroom, one bathroom house. He won't take any money," Candace said, raising her voice a little.

Another man came up to Candace, and I decided it was time to leave. I stopped into a Sears on my way home. Walking into the store, I remembered I still had a McCain pin on my sweatshirt. I took it off, then headed to hardware.