Several weeks ago there was a big hubbub over Oprah Winfrey snubbing Sarah Palin for not having invited her to appear on Oprah’s television show. As reported here on Virgnia Virtucon there was pretty good agreement that not going on Oprah was a good thing. Not to push the snub back to Oprah, but more to say the campaign for the Presidency is more important then daytime talk television and other television programs that exist for the purpose of entertainment. The McCain/Palin camp actually played the issue pretty well by not making a big deal or even a small deal out of it at all.
Now I wish the campaigns would have stuck to the principle they laid out by avoiding all entertainment programs like Letterman, Leno and SNL, but I guess we are not going avoid letting pop-culture push into the office of the Presidency. Oh well at least Governor Palin was able to raise the roof on SNL!
A couple of weeks ago along comes this fellow from Ohio. Samuel Joesph Wurzelbacher. The campaign latched onto Joe the Plumber immediately. Rightfully so! However what they have failed to do is control the message of the Joe the Plumber as “Joe the Plumber”. The story and opportunity was laid at the campaign’s feet with a bright red bow. What have they done? Made Sam Wurzelbacher the center of the media frenzy – not the message of “Joe the Plumber”.
The message of “Joe The Plumber” is what this campaign should be all about, “An American citizen with ambition who deserves a government that will allow his ambition become reality.” Sure Sam “Joe” Wurzelbacher may not make it to the point of fulfilling his goals of owning a successful plumbing business, but he should have the avenues to try. America, for lack of a better term, survives on failure. That’s right failure – why, because if you never fail or have the risk of failure you never have the drive, ambition or will to succeed.
A government that hands the disenfranchised, the poor, the middle-class a chair rather than a helping hand takes the risk of falling down away. That in turn takes the opportunities for success away. The end result of that is the rich will get richer, while the poor continue to live in there current existence left with only an opportunity to get poorer.
That should be the message the McCain campaign uses from the lessons of “Joe The Plumber”. Unfortunately they have let the media take on the story of Joe the Plumber, and instead of hearing about the ambition for “Joe the Plumber” we are hearing all about the life of Samual Joesph Wurzelbacher.
Filed under: 2008 Elections, National Politics, Republicans
