Reply #18: Even granting Wurzelbacher the best of intentions re: "tap dancing" ...

[krkaufman]

... and putting aside the fact that he appears, in the video, to be satisfied with Obama's interraction with him at the end, based on his nodding and body language... ... he's full of s**t.

Obama spent SIX MINUTES with the guy, detailing his tax plan's workings, fighting through an initial interruption. The fact that Wurzelbacher doesn't like Obama's answer, that he doesn't agree with Obama's approach, does not equate to Obama being evasive -- or in Joe's suspect wording, "tap dancing."

Show me *ANY* time that McCain has put himself out there like Obama did, spending that much time with any one voter, let alone one in opposition to his positions.

LA Times: Plumber Joe Wurzelbacher's entire video chat with Barack Obama

(excerpts)

... Joe Wurzelbacher ... He's the balded plumber in the tight Toledo T-shirt who engaged Barack Obama in a six-minute conversation Sunday about the freshman senator's small-business tax that would hit Joe's about-to-be-business harder. Obama patiently explained how Joe might end up paying more on what he made over $250,000 but that was to help the people who weren't making that much.

Since Joe just came up from that lower income area, he did not seem fully convinced.

Joe kept talking about being a foreman and chasing the American dream, but he didn't really get the higher tax part because it seemed to penalize his hard work the more successful he became.

The entire polite conversation between Obama and Wurzelbacher was caught on tape by ABC News. It is actually rather unusual for a presidential candidate, whose most precious commodity is each day's 1,440 minutes, to spend six of them on one possible voter, even with a network camera obviously rolling nearby.

Since American political protocol says a candidate shouldn't be the one to break off a conversation with a voter, usually one campaign aide is assigned the duty to politely end such chats after one or two minutes by interrupting with a "We really must be going, sir." But not this time.

What baffles me is... Where the hell is the praise for Obama for having spent that time talking to a voter so obviously opposed to his policy? And where's the outrage over McCain and Palin failing to make themselves more available to the press, let alone the public?