Joe the Plumber

Me, writing political commentary?! Stranger things have happened, like, for instance, having a candidate for president who is intelligent and articulate and able to put issues before what the other candidate's campaign is saying about him personally. So, I watched the debate Wednesday night with increasing hope and concern: is it possible that America might go so far as to elect a president who, while rich*, was also at the top of his class in school? Or are we going to fall yet again for the dumbing down of our politics to the level of personal grievance and feelings? It all hinges on Joe the Plumber. But who is he?

I don't mean in real life; everyone knows that now. Even on Wednesday, Senator McCain didn't really care about who "Joe" was or his staff would have bothered to find out, for example, that "Joe's" full name is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher and that he isn't even licensed by the Association of Plumbers, Steamfitters and Service Mechanics. As much as Senator McCain used Joe's question to Senator Obama about his tax plan as a way to try to demonstrate that Senator Obama was out to "get" the common man, for Senator McCain, "Joe" was more important as a symbol than as a person. While Senator Obama answered Joe in person with detailed statistics about how his tax plan would affect 95% of Americans--i.e. all those of us making less than $250,000 a year--all Senator McCain wanted to do was make Senator Obama's answer proof of an ideological position that Senator Obama doesn't even hold. And so I held my breath, because I could see that Senator McCain was here gaining the upper hand, not because he was accurately contesting the facts, but because he was so adeptly manipulating the symbol.

Senator Obama promises to implement a tax plan that will benefit the vast majority of the American population, on the one hand by easing the tax burden on everyone other than the richest 5% (which has, to be fair, included certain members of my family, just nobody in my generation); on the other by using the taxes collected to make health care and education even to the college level affordable for all. How could this possibly be a bad thing? Ah, but then there is the American dream: not just to have a house and money for food and clothes and an opportunity to work and raise one's children, but to achieve what Senator Obama himself has, to be born ordinary (socio-economically speaking) and rise, by way of hard work and luck, into that top 5%. This is what Joe the Plumber symbolizes: not just the Common Man, but the Common Man On His Way To Becoming a Millionaire, as every American (apparently) believes, contrary to all probability, he is. Senator McCain is, like Senator Obama, rich (or his wife is). He is making common cause with "Joe" by promising him that if Joe ever wins the lottery, he (Senator McCain) won't take the money away. Senator Obama, on the other hand, is promising that now that he (Senator Obama) is rich, he is willing to share his money with others by way of a slight (from 36% to 39%) increase on the taxes that he pays above the first $250,000 a year of his income.

Which of the two will America vote for: the pie-in-the-sky of proverbial riches-to-come or the plan to extend health care and education to all? I wish I could believe that we will vote for the latter, but I fear that we are greedy enough to hold onto the dream of the former, even when it is impossible to realize (95% of the population will never be as rich as the top 5%, no matter what Senator McCain promises**). What I find even harder to accept is that we will do so on the basis of the fact that the man who is proposing to change our tax structure such that it is more progressive is "too smart" to understand the needs of the "common man," as Senator McCain insinuated more than once, commenting on Senator Obama's eloquence. Which brings me to the real concern that I had watching the debate: whether we actually want what Senator Obama is promising, most particularly, a college-level education for all.

Colleges are not famous for teaching students to be plumbers. Nor do they teach students to be factory workers or mechanics or engineers (except theoretically). Unless they are vocational colleges, they do not teach one how to be a chef or a nurse or a carpenter or a construction worker or a garbage collector or a shop assistant. For the majority of occupations, most training occurs on the job or in particular technical courses. The number of things that most colleges (at least like the one where I teach and where, yes, Senator Obama taught for some years) can train one for is fairly limited: professor, doctor, lawyer, theologian, scientist. And no, not all of these jobs make one rich (the first one certainly doesn't, unless one writes a best-selling book). Rather, a "college education," like "Joe the Plumber," is a symbol--of opportunity, of social mobility, of entry into the middle class (which still does not make one rich, mind you; middle≠top 5%). What it does not seem to be a symbol of, and therefore what worries me, is the capacity for understanding, not to mention intellectual and spiritual growth.

Why not? Well, just listen to the way Senator McCain attacks Senator Obama. "You," Senator McCain seems to be saying, "may talk pretty, but we don't have to believe you. Just because you can put fancy words to your policies doesn't mean you are actually in favor of the ordinary person"--who, by implication, is nowhere near as intelligent as Senator Obama, otherwise he (Joe the Plumber) would be able to understand the "big words" that Senator Obama is using. Now, Senator Obama is promising to make a college education affordable even for the children of all the Joe the Plumbers who make less than $250,000 a year, so that, conceivably, those children, once college-educated, could understand what Senator Obama is saying. But it is not clear to me that Joe the Plumber wants more intelligent children; he wants his money--at least, this seems to be what Senator McCain is saying.

I'm not sure what to do with this, being a college-educated intellectual myself. Can I understand the "common man"? Do I have sympathy with Joe the Plumber? I actually think Senator Obama does; after all, he's met thousands of Joe the Plumbers over the course of the campaign, and he's smart enough to realize that most of them want to keep their money. That's, after all, what he's promised. But he is also idealistic enough to believe that they want something more, a chance at a life that includes not only plumbing, but also literature and history and art and mathematics and biology and physics and chemistry; perhaps even (God forbid) a little theology. The thing is, I believe this, too. No, I don't believe everyone is naturally as intelligent (in the sense of the capacity for "book-learning") as everyone else, anymore than I believe everyone is as athletically intelligent as everyone else; I've got my fencing results to prove it. But I do believe that everyone--everyone--is creative enough to want to make beautiful things, some out of language, some out of matter, and that it enriches one's life to be able to think about why.

Perhaps this is not what Senator Obama meant when he promised to make college education affordable as a matter of national urgency; perhaps he was thinking rather in terms of education in technical disciplines such as engineering so that we can make more fuel-efficient cars. But it is important, I think, that it is on the level of linguistic competence (eloquence) that Senator McCain felt it symbolically appropriate to attack his opponent. For Senator McCain, "college-educated" clearly means "beyond the intellectual capacity of the common man". Is this fair? As I've said, I don't know many plumbers, but I have met the men and women who worked on the cars my father used to race. It was always somewhat irritating when my father would insist, particularly after a few beers, that they were smarter than I was, but then, he's right, what do I know about cars? What I saw when we visited their homes was even more striking. Artwork everywhere; beautifully painted models of cars; exquisite craftsmanship in carpentry and metal. Real things that they had made. These were not dummies, howevermuch they might have struggled in school. Nor, when they learned what I do, were they uninterested in history; quite the reverse. Usually they had questions that even I couldn't answer, but invariably they were curious and wanted to know more.

So who is right about Joe the Plumber: Senator Obama or Senator McCain? Is the average American more interested in money than understanding? In riches than in science and art? Will a promise of education override their sense that they are only a few lottery tickets away from vast wealth? I think it could if only it were put the right way. It may be impossible for all of us to be financially rich, but it is more than possible for all of us to be intellectually and, yes, spiritually rich. I am heartened above all by the bookstands that I see in the truck stops, where, I assume, the Joe the Plumbers of America occasionally shop. Yes, they are stocked mainly with bestsellers, but this to me signals not the degeneration of mass culture, but rather, and more importantly, an overwhelming urge to read. And what are these bestsellers? Not only romance novels and thrillers or magazines about cars. There are works of theology and spiritual discipline, much as, if this were the fifteenth century, there would be books of Hours. People want education for the same reason they have always wanted education, at least at the college or university level; remember that it was the clergy who started these schools, and not only Oxford and Cambridge or Harvard, Princeton and Yale, but also (as Marilynn Robinson has shown) many of the oldest colleges that Joe the Plumber and his fellow mid-westerners would most likely attend. People want education in order to be able to read and think about what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God and, therefore, to be makers of things like books and cultures and plumbing and cars. This, to my mind, is what Senator Obama is promising. I think you know who I am voting for.

*Thanks to the royalties on a book he published.
**Unless, that is, the richest 5% actually were taxed in such a way as to "spread the wealth around" as per communist ideals, which is not at all what Senator Obama is proposing, pace Senator McCain.