Not to indulge too much in this overblown interest in Joe the Plumber, but there are serious doubts about whether he would in fact pay more taxes under Obama's tax plan.

Also, by Todd Gitlin on TPM:

Joe the Plumber is, it seems, a registered Republican. (Hat tip to Ben Smith of Politico, who got the item from the Toledo Blade.) Moreover, according to the logical Jed L at Daily Kos, he wasn't undecided either:

Speaking with Katie Couric, "Joe" said that he "wasn't swayed" by the debate last night, yet pretty much knew who he was going to vote for. So if (a) he wasn't swayed by the debate and (b) knows who he is going to vote for, then (c) he had already made up his mind before the debate.

Anyway, whether Joe is on the level or not, my sister-in-law, Karen Cook Velasti, makes this interesting point :

Tell Joe the plumber that a business without customers will fail no matter how little or how much he pays in taxes. If people are out of jobs, they won't be able to pay him for repairing his kitchen sink. However, if Joe the middle-class-man or Josephine the middle-class-woman get some of their tax money back or don't have to worry about medical bills, they might be able to hire him for that bathroom renovation they have been putting off.

Palin-Plumber 2012. You read it here first.

I went to Politico.com and found no such statement that "Joe the Plumber" is not registered to vote. So please provide a link...if you can. But I'm sure ACORN can fix that in any case. Whether he votes or not, he's already helped McCain by exposing the fallacy of Obama's tax plan. All across the nation, small business owners are looking at Joe and seeing themselves. They are being squeezed by the economy and a potential president who threatens to turn a recession into a depression with tax and spend policies to "spread the wealth" around. Nice.

The fact is that Obama is either lying or stupid if he cannot make the connection that a small business earning $250K is more typical than atypical. Five employees earning an average of $50K each is all it takes to meet the threshold. So why are Fox News viewers incensed over cavalier statements by Obama, "spreading the wealth around?" Perhaps because they understand something that eludes Obama's grasp--that it is not the government's wealth to spread; it's theirs.

One interesting tidbit about Joe the Plumber: he's not even registered to vote according to Politico. I guess he won't be helping his buddy John "I can feel your pain" Mccain come election day.