Joe and Jim: Two Guys Get Fame. Waiting for Fortune.

[Omaha Steve]

Joe and Jim: Two Guys Get Fame. Waiting for Fortune.

by Tula Connell, Nov 9, 2006

One of viewers’ favorites: Joe and Jim take Bush to the people.

Joe and Jim, members of the Transport Workers (TWU) union who taped a series of video commentaries for the AFL-CIO on working family issues like the minimum wage and health care, are now famous in their hometown, Philadelphia.



Calling their video appearance “the best ad that never appeared on TV,” by two guys who conveyed such a “an unscripted, reality-TV feel,” the Philadelphia Inquirer contacted Joe Coccio and Jim McBride, subway mechanics and union leaders at TWU Local 234 to find out how their fame began.

I get this call and it’s some guy from California telling me he wants to do this,” McBride said.

I hung up on him. I figured it was a prank. Then somebody else called and I hung up on him. Finally, the international called and said, ‘You gotta get with the program.’ ”

Coccio said, “We were just shooting from the hip. It was all spontaneous and not scripted. Just talking about things, pretty much what we do every day at the union hall.”

The Two Guys provided spontaneous commentary on Bush and outsourcing, on what Bush had done for working people (nothing) and life in a limo.

Most hilariously, they took a life-sized, cardboard cutout of Bush on the road in Philadelphia, where they asked voters to tell George what they think, and to the offices of two members of Congress, Jim Gerlach in Pennsylvania’s Sixth District and Tom Kean’s campaign headquarters in New Jersey. Kean lost his Senate race to Bob Menendez.

Thanks, Joe and Jim.