Joe the Quitter?

Poor, manipulated Joe is a typical modern Republican. The giveaway? He's schizo on gov't spending.

It's not that Joe doesn't know what the GOP stands for; it's that Joe doesn't know what he stands for. Joe is a typical teabagger who is angry and fed up and suspects that his party has sold him a bill of goods. But the teabaggers can't stomach the Democratic alternative, nor permit themselves to talk about economic class interests or fighting corporate dominance of our government, like real populists do. (Remember, up until a few months ago, Joe and his ilk believed that what was good for Wall Street and the very rich was by definition good for America. That's how Joe rose to prominence in the first place, opposing Obama's tax hike on the rich, even though Obama's plan would have cut Joe's taxes.)

It's gotten to the point where the originator of the Tea Party web site and Chicago Tea Party, an astroturfer named Eric Odom, has written a memo to the teabaggers, imploring them to concentrate their national efforts on fighting socialized health care, internet taxation, and union card check.

Really?! Do those issues compose the "rallying cry" that got these thousands of white people out on the streets in the first place? I don't think so. Odom is learning that a fake grassroots movement created to achieve his goals can, unfortunately, morph into a real grassroots movement with its own goals. (Goals, so far, like calling Obama a Muslim and dressing in funny period costumes.)

Will the teabaggers be part of a real, nationwide, grassroots conservative movement to bring it back to its small-government roots? Or will they remain a publicity fad milked by FOX and talk radio? Will they have the numbers and the sustained focus to endure? And will Joe the Plumber and similar average Republicans get fed up enough with their party to truly reform it, or will they continue to be manipulated by faux-populists like Eric Odom and Newt Gingrich? Time will tell. In the meantime, Joe & Co. are the face of cognitive dissonance.


Joe the Plumber -- Quitting the GOP?
By Eric Kleefeld
May 7, 2009 | Talking Points Memo

Is Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher really quitting the Republican Party? That's what a new Time article on the current sad state of the GOP says.

"Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, tells TIME he's so outraged by GOP overspending, he's quitting the party -- and he's the bull's-eye of its target audience," the article says.

Mr. The Plumber has been a figurehead among Republican activists since last October, when a chance encounter with Barack Obama and the active promotion by McCain campaign turned him into the face of blue-collar conservatism. If he's not willing to call himself a Republican, they're really in trouble.

But even here on spending, there's a catch when it comes to the ideological purity: "But he also said he wouldn't support any cuts in defense, Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid -- which, along with debt payments, would put more than two-thirds of the budget off limits."
Huh???