I kind of left the Joe the Plumber news alone today, but I thought the comment by Brown Sugar was interesting and I checked it out at Crooks and Liars. Here’s what they had to say.

I guess it’s no wonder John McCain was so happy to use “Joe the Plumber” as a debate prop last night — he’s a partisan Republican who also happens to be a member of McCain’s old friends, the Keating family.

From Martin Eisenstadt:

Turns out that Joe Wurzelbacher from the Toledo event is a close relative of Robert Wurzelbacher of Milford, Ohio. Who’s Robert Wurzelbacher? Only Charles Keating’s son-in-law and the former senior vice president of American Continental, the parent company of the infamous Lincoln Savings and Loan. The now retired elder Wurzelbacher is also a major contributor to Republican causes giving well over $10,000 in the last few years.

Say it ain’t so Joe! 

John McCain came out swinging in the third and final Presidential Debate. He seemed intent on his promise to “kick Obama’s you know what” at Hofstra Wednesday night.

But somewhere between hello and goodnight, Senator McCain let his temper get the best of him. Maybe his campaign didn’t tell him about the split-screen that would capture his every move. He had a bad case of the Al Gores through the second half of the debate, huffing and rolling his eyes quite a bit.

In CBS Poll, fifty-three percent of uncommitted voters surveyed said Barack Obama was the winner of Wednesday’s debate. Twenty-two percent said McCain won. Twenty-five percent saw the debate as a tie. A CNN poll taken after the debate found the same thing.

McCain never really recovered from Bob Schieffer’s turning the debate towards the candidates’ views on attack politics. Obama really turned the corner there with his explanation of who he “pals around with,” Republicans who have served on boards with Bill Ayers, and rising above the fray. McCain drove the low road express right into the gutter and where people aren’t willing to go this time.

Obama continues to be seen as a front runner after the debate but in an early morning breakfast on Thursday, he warns supports against overconfidence. This comes from Ben Smith’s Politico Blog:

At a breakfast fundraiser this morning, Obama used the example of the New Hampshire primary, when he lost to Hillary Rodham Clinton after a huge win in Iowa, to warn his supporters against overconfidence, Carrie Budoff Brown reports.

Otherwise, they may get “spanked,” he said.

“For those of you who are feeling giddy or cocky or think this is all set, I just have two words for you: New Hampshire,” Mr. Obama told top contributors at the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan. “I’ve been in these positions before when we were favored and the press starts getting carried away and we end up getting spanked.”

He added, “That’s another good lesson that Hillary Clinton taught me, so we want to make sure that we are closing strong, running through the tape.”

Less than 3 weeks, and I can’t wait for this to be over. And someone please tell Joe the Plumber I said hello.

I like John McCain.   I do.

Why do I like John McCain?  For the reason that he states in his stump speech.  Because he has taken on his party.  Because in the past, he has tried to shake up Washington.

Remember the Gang of 14?  You know, the seven Republican and seven Democratic Senators who came together to break Democratic filibustering of George W. Bush judicial nominees.  McCain wasn’t very popular for “reaching across the aisle” in this case, but he did it and it got something accomplished.

John McCain won the Republican nomination for reasons such as that.  True dyed-in-the-wool Republicans split their votes between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.  It was McCain’s centrist tendencies in areas like immigration and campaign finance reform that helped him pull the upset in the Republican Primary.

Now, McCain spends his days pandering to the very base of the Republican Party that is at a 15 year low in popularity.  A base that comes out to his rally’s saying they want to “kill” his opponent.

I can forgive McCain for (repeatedly) voting against the MLK Holiday, but I let him slide for catering to the racist wing of the Republican Party and waiting until Friday to even say one word about the tone of his audience.

At the end of the day you have to be true to yourself, and in his heart of hearts, John McCain knows that this isn’t who he is.  He knows better than to debate a man and never look him in the eye.  He knows in his heart that that shows weakness, yet he allowed others to tell him it showed strength.

John McCain knows that if you have a problem with who a man hangs around, you say it to his face when you’re in the room with him.  You don’t wait until the next day when you’re miles away from one another.  John McCain knows better.

This Presidential race is far from over, and the economy has been no friend to the McCain campaign.  And it’s my belief that Obama has a superior strategy in place, as Bill Clinton did in 1992.  But the predicament that John McCain finds himself in today is because he has so solidly pandered to the very people that he claims to have fought against in his Washington career.  They didn’t win him the nomination and they won’t win him the election.