Amid President Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign, an ordinary Joe became an overnight media darling during an impromptu encounter with the Illinois senator.
Samuel ‘Joe the Plumber’ Wurzelbacher was on hand when Obama’s campaign rolled through his working-class neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio. Wurzelbacher had recently bought a new business and wanted to know how Obama’s tax increase for filers above the $250,000 threshold would affect his business.
“I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes about 250, 270,000 dollars a year. Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” he asked.
Obama, as he often did in stump speeches, explained that his plan sought to help out “Joe the Plumbers” who were struggling to attain the American dream as Wurzelbacher had. “It’s not that I want to punish your success,” Obama said. “I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success too.”
Wurzelbacher became a campaign staple for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, and his name featured prominently during the third and final debate, with both candidates making pleas to the average American.
In 2012, Wurzelbacher was drafted to run against Marcy Kaptur, who had unseated longtime Rep. Dennis Kucinich. He lost the race in the heavy-leaning Democratic district.
In a 2018 Fox News interview, Wurzelbacher relived the Obama interview that made him famous. Today, Wurzelbacher is an executive of Swiftshield, a company that makes steel barricades to protect students in the event of a mass shooting.
