Paul Farhi of the Washington Post writes: Joe the Plumber (no longer a plumber; first name actually Samuel) popped into our town yesterday evening to sell his new book and to remind people that he's still a plain and simple guy. Mission accomplished, on at least one of his missions.
About 11 people wandered into the rows of seats set up hopefully in the basement of a downtown Border's bookstore to hear Joe speak. Joe addressed them from behind a lectern and with a microphone, but that seemed unnecessarily formal.
If you've already forgotten "Joe" Wurzelbacher, 35, of Toledo, Ohio, it just goes to show you how ephemeral the life of a plain-speaking, Republican Everyman is these days. Joe was the square-jawed guy briefly drafted by John McCain's campaign to be its Voice of Regular Folks. Joe got a couple of news cycles' worth of attention starting on Oct. 12 -- he remembers the date clearly -- when he was videotaped confronting Barack Obama about his small-business tax plans. He later called Obama's plans "socialism."
Now, only a few months later, he's kind of like a vestigial tail, a leftover artifact from a forgotten time. He's Clara Peller, Willie Horton or Gennifer Flowers -- names that are the questions in a "Jeopardy!" category called "Presidential Campaign Distractions." To his credit, Wurzelbacher is hip to the audacity of hype: "I get e-mails all the time from people asking me when my 15 minutes is going to expire," he grinned after his talk. "Sometimes they just write, '15 . . . 14:59 . . . 14:58 . . .' "
....Wurzelbacher was scheduled to speak and sign books for three hours, but the Joe Show was over in 55 minutes. Total copies of "Joe the Plumber" sold: five.
Read the entire Washington Post article here.
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