Senator John McCain and Joe Wurzelbacher at campaign event (Reuters)
Joe the Plumber, (whose real name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher) made some harsh statements about Senator John McCain this weekend saying the former GOP presidential candidate “really screwed my life up.”
The jabs came at a fundraiser in Pennsylvania over the weekend where he headlined state Representative Sam Rohrer’s Mobilize for Liberty event. As reported by Pennsylvania Public Radio Reporter Scott Detrow, who spoke to Wurzelbacher after the event, the outbreak media star of the 2008 presidential campaign held nothing back.
During the event, Wurzelbacher reportedly said he doesn’t support Sarah Palin anymore because she is backing McCain’s Senate re-election,“John McCain is no public servant,” he said in his remarks, calling the 2008 Republican nominee a “career politician.”
Detrow pointed out how Wurzelbacher owes his fame in part to McCain, and the Ohio plumber fired back to that charge, “I don’t owe him s—. He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it.”
“McCain was trying to use me. I happened to be the face of middle Americans. It was a ploy,” he added.
Wurzelbacher also said people should lay off the extreme personal attacks on President Obama. “The birthers, the truthers — if people are trying to bunch them [with tea partiers], that would kill us. That just pushes away Democrats and independents who might come out for our cause otherwise,” Detrow reports him as saying.
He even had some positive remarks about the president, “I think his ideology is un-American, but he’s one of the more honest politicians. At least he told us what he wanted to do.”
Joe the Plumber gained his nickname and claim to fame during the 2008 presidential election when he asked then candidate Obama about taxes at a campaign stop in Ohio. His question then became a hot topic for debate and campaign fodder.
Wurzelbacher also eventually went on to campaign for Senator McCain.