Joe The Plumber, a campaign media sensation in 2008, is back again and running for Congress. But this time, he comes across as a wiser more thoughtful Joe than the guy who latched onto the McCain-Palin ticket in the last presidential contest.
After delivering his announcement Tuesday night at a Hungarian restaurant in Toledo, Samuel “Joe The Plumber” Wurzelbacher gave a number of media interviews and handled himself very well. Those on the left who vilified the guy after he criticized Barack Obama, face-to-face, on the ’08 campaign trail would be surprised at Wurzelbacher’s thoughtful comments.
Wurzelbacher said he is reluctantly running as Republican because he would otherwise not stand a chance of winning in Ohio’s 9th District, but that his party affiliation did not encompass who he was as a candidate.
“I’m running as a Republican, but by God, that doesn’t encompass who I am, because I want to represent all Americans,” Wurzelbacher said. “I am going to run, because I’ve been there. I know how it is to live paycheck to paycheck. I’ve done that for most of my life, and I’m doing it now.”
The candidate emphasized that his apolitical background would be an advantage.
“That’s what people in the trades do, we fix things,” Wurzelbacher said in one national TV interview. “I make things whole. Politicians for the most part seem to get into the game to live off the American people’s backs. And it’s just not right.”
According to Politico, the candidate also said that politicians had turned Americans against one another.
“In the last 40 years, look at what the Republicans and Democrats have brought us to. There’s more hate and division in this country than you can shake a stick at, and it’s done through the media and through our politicians pitting us Americans against each other,” he said.
I was especially impressed with his interview on Sirius/XM radio’s POTUS. When asked about his views on the Occupy Wall Street movement Wurzelbacher insisted on answering the question by separating out the socialists and anarchists who have latched onto the protests. The rest of the Occupiers, he said, are understandably frustrated and should stage demonstrations outside of the White House.
That’s an answer you will never hear from the sad-sack pack of presidential candidates in the GOP field.
After becoming an overnight celebrity in ’08, Wurzelbacher has been traveling the country, speaking at numerous political events, most of which had a distinct rightward tilt to them. On Wednesday, he said he met many people who would make “great statesmen,” but they lacked the money and name recognition to make a credible run for office.
“I thought long and hard about running and why I would do it,” said Wurzelbacher in his announcement speech. “I’m not the kind of plumber who uses duct tape.”
Great line.
Wurzelbacher is running in the heavily redrawn 9th District in northern Ohio, which has pitted two Democratic incumbents against one another: Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Marcy Kaptur. 
Imagine how much fun a race between Kucinich and Wurzelbacher would be. That could end up as the most entertaining congressional contest in the nation in 2012.
One footnote: As I have pointed out several times before, Wurzelbacher’s complaint to Obama was that the Democrat’s approach toward taxes amounted to redistributing wealth. At the time, Obama wanted to boost the top tax rate for those making $250,000 or more from 35 percent to the old rate of the 1990s – 39.6 percent.
If Wurzelbacher had somehow emerged as the highest-priced plumber in America and his income rose from, let’s say, $225,000 to $275,000, the higher rate from the 1990s would cost him an extra $17.30 a week. That’s about $2.47 a day for a guy who would be making $132 an hour. 
Enough said.
You can watch a video of Wurzelbacher’s announcement of candidacy here.