With 12 days to go, a new Associated Press-GtK poll has John McCain and Barack Obama running even. McCain is getting a boost from Average Joes who earn less than $50,000 a year.
AP reports:
During their final debate, a feisty McCain repeatedly forced Obama to defend his record, comments and associations. He also used the story of a voter whom the Democrat had met in Ohio, "Joe the plumber," to argue that Obama's tax plan would be bad for working class voters.
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," Obama told the man with the last name of Wurzelbacher, who had asked Obama whether his plan to increase taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year would impede his ability to buy the plumbing company where he works.
On Wednesday, McCain's campaign unveiled a new TV ad that features that Obama quote, and shows different people saying: "I'm Joe the plumber." A man asks: "Obama wants my sweat to pay for his trillion dollars in new spending?"
Since McCain has seized on that line of argument, he has picked up support among white married people and non-college educated whites, the poll shows, while widening his advantage among white men.
Obama says McCain is "out of touch." So, an appropriate campaign song for the homestretch may be "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe" from the 1943 musical, "Cabin in the Sky."
