Senator Obama Is the One Who Doesn’t Understand?

It was a pretty popular phrase before and during the first debate. Senator John McCain would constantly claim that “Senator Obama just doesn’t understand” about foreign policy. This attack was, of course, entirely dropped after the first debate in which Senator Barack Obama proved that he did indeed understand foreign policy. The last debate, the third of the three Presidential debates, has opened up a window to allow this utterance to return, not against Senator Obama, but against Senator McCain on domestic issues, economic issues, and the American people in general. The two key points in its return? Those would be Joe the Plumber and Women’s health.

Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher became an overnight media sensation after Senator McCain decided to make him a central theme of the debate Wednesday night. To the Senator Mr. Wurzelbacher represented the working class Independent and McCain thought that he could connect viscerally to them by directing his responses to Joe. He stuck to his guns, and evoked Joe “the Plumber” over twenty times, mostly on economic issues and how the McCain plan would aid good ol’ Joe more then the Obama plan. One has to wonder how much thinking really went into this though as the entire concept would require an average, everyday plumber to be making more then a quarter million dollars a year and that raking in that much dough would still be considered “hurting.” It’s a ridiculous idea that was shot down as one of the first things to come out of the media’s love/hate relationship with any celebrity.

In the days following the debate a number of facts have come out about Joe. The most relevant may be that Mr. Wurzelbacher only makes about $40,000 a year and the company that McCain claimed that Joe was trying to buy has a net earning of about $100,000 a year which means that both he and the company he works for would do far better under Barack Obama’s economic plan then John McCain’s. It’s also become apparent with some back checking, and even with just Joe’s comments over the past couple days, that Mr. Wurzelbacher is not an Independent. He is a registered Republican that’s farther to the right then most and has had multiple appearances on Fox News even before he so fatefully asked Senator Obama about his tax plan. This is a person who was already decided, and who becomes more and more disconnected from the common everyman with every interview. At least that’s what one hopes. The only semblance of forethought in this entire thing is if one prescribes to the notion that Mr. Wurzelbacher was a political “plant.” The term is used to describe a person placed in the audience to seem genuinely a part of the crowd when they are in league with either a storyline or an agenda, and this has an appearance of truth considering the McCain rally Friday where Senator Obama was blamed for the media’s deconstruction of Joe “the Plumber” and “the invasion of his privacy” as if Senator Obama had set the dogs on Joe himself. Never mind that Mr. Wurzelbacher is reveling in his fifteen minutes of fame and his ability to get his extremely rightist ideals out on a national level. Other, minor, things to come out about Joe are that he’s a contractor, not a plumber, and that he owes a substantial amount in back taxes he’s refused to pay. These all seem like pretty big blunders on McCain’s side, but they aren’t the worst and not nearly the most damaging to his campaign.

In the same debate Senator McCain may have irrevocably damaged his standing with independent and liberal republican women. While trying to make Senator Obama seem like an extremist for voting against a bill to ban partial birth and late term abortions that didn’t include an exception for the woman’s health McCain may have painted himself as the extremist. In this clip McCain is seen mocking the health exception with a demeaning tone and quotation fingers.



Many women have taken this as insulting and terms like “disgusting” and “horrifying” have been used to describe the implications this raises about Senator McCain’s view of women. That would be strong language if it wasn’t backed up, but articles such as this article about his response to birth control and this one about HIV prevention have previously shown some surprising things when it comes to McCain conforming with the Republican parties stance on disease prevention and double standards of medically insured Viagra and the lack of insurance coverage for contraceptives. What may be the most insulting thing though are the shenanigans that played out on the news the next day when almost every McCain spokesperson suddenly became a woman in an attempt to run some damage control. This issue is incredibly important in that McCain has been trying to win over the Hilary supporters who were “scorned” by the choosing of Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for President. This has played very badly with them and has almost assured that the women’s vote will heavily favor Senator Obama come November should things remain unchanged as this only adds to the concerns women have already voice about a possible McCain/Palin presidency, one of which is summed up nicely by this Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films video.



One should also probably point anybody who claims the sanctity of life as a reason for having an extremely hard line pro-life stance, Senator McCain and his campaign included, to this article if only for the enjoyment of seeing the steam pour from their ears as they try to work out the paradox this should create within their belief structure.

As the dust cleared on the third debate it appeared some heavy punches had been landed. Punches that may very well shape the outcome of this election. The problem is that they were thrown by Senator McCain only to return and land neatly on his own chin. One does not throw a complete unknown into the political arena and expect it to come out neatly and one does not make light of Women’s concerns in this country and expect to carry their vote. Senator McCain’s campaign, should he lose, will be an example of what not to do for generations. He has carried himself like a troll on national television, scorned a late night icon on whose show he originally announce his 2008 candidacy, fanned the flames of fanaticism, made multiple irresponsible choices including his VP pick, created an ugly caricature of the middle class, insulted the intelligence of every American, blatantly lied and insisted upon his lies after the truth had come out, belittled women, carried out a hateful and vile campaign, and, probably most reprehensibly of all, devoured a wonderful candidate who may have made an incredible president eight years ago with his de-evolution to the lowest and most disgusting denominator leaving only one question left to ask. Who’s the one who doesn’t understand?