I don't agree with Patrick Ruffini on much, but I certainly do agree with him on this:If you want to get a sense of how unserious and ungrounded most Americans think the Republican Party is, look no further than how conservatives elevate Joe the Plumber as a spokesman. The movement has become so gimmick-driven that Wurzelbacher will be a conservative hero long after people have forgotten what his legitimate policy beef with Obama was.Exactly; there's nothing self-confident about this absurd know-nothing, "real America," right-wing, populist "Joe the Plumber" schtick. Especially when the poster boy for the movement is a guy whose name isn't really "Joe" (it's "Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher"), who's not even a licensed plumber, who's a tax cheat, and who is nowhere near the income threshold ($250,000 per year) where he would have seen a tax increase from that dirty "socialist" Obama. That's just bad comedy, not a serious political movement for 21st century (or any century, for that matter) America. When Republicans ditch "Joe the Plumber," Sarah Palin, Eric Cantor and all the other know-nothing, populist, right-wing-ideological clowns out there, they may have a serious party again. Until then, they won't.
A movement self-confident in its place in American society would not have made Joe the Plumber a bigger story than he actually was...
