McCain, 'Senator Government' and Joe the Plumber

THURSDAY: Joe the Plumber: Obama's plan infuriates me. "I don't like it," said Wurzelbacher. "You know, me or -- you know, Bill Gates, I don't care who you are. If you worked for it, if it was your idea, and you implemented it, it's not right for someone to decide you made too much."

You go Joe! This guy really gets it. More.

Made it through the presidential debate tonight and managed to stay awake the whole time---barely. However, I'm fading fast and will have to pick this up tomorrow. Before I do, a couple of observations: am cheered by McCain's overall decent, if not at times halting, performance. One of his better early lines that kept me awake and that McCain needed to say:

"Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

There's a clear distinction between Senator McCain, less articulate and charming, but extremely well informed and experienced, and Senator Obama, a smooth operator and glib communicator who comes across as knowing a lot of theory about government and finance.

McCain wants to cut spending and taxing by the federal government in a way that gets big government off our backs as much as possible across the board.

Obama would have big government---which he thinks knows what's best for us and therefore can handle our money better than we can---more involved in every aspect our lives. It was no accident that McCain's slip of tongue by calling his opponent "Senator Government" was one of the best lines of the night.

"This really gets down to the fundamental difference in our philosophies. If you notice that in all his proposals, Senator Government wants, Senator Obama wants government to do the job."

McCain should seriously turn this Freudian slip into a major theme in the remaining three weeks of the campaign. Turn Senator Government into a song sung across the land. Then put it on YouTube. He could even turn this slip into Halloween masks to scare the wits out people.

And as for Joe the Plumber, I'm sure he's feeling his oats tonight and will immediately be hiring a publicist to help him with all the book and movie deals that'll be flooding in tomorrow and perhaps to advise him on laying the ground work for his future presidential run in four years. He didn't want that plumbing business anyway.... See you tomorrow.

UPDATE: Thanks to my intrepid commenter, Vienna Va, who keeps me honest, it's Joe the Plumber, rather than Charlie the Plumber, as I wrote last night. I was thinking about my favorite plumber in Jackson Hole whom I've done business with for two decades. But come to think of it, maybe I should call Charlie the Plumber for a comment!

Joe says Obama is a damn good speaker but he likes McCain's platform more