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Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, famous for arguing with Barack Obama on the campaign trail, died of pancreatic cancer
Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, who shot to brief fame during the 2008 US presidential election as “Joe the Plumber”, has died aged 49. Cause of death was pancreatic cancer, his wife, Katie Wurzelbacher, told news outlets.
Fifteen years ago, Wurzelbacher became famous after arguing with the then Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, on the campaign trail in Toledo, Ohio. Wurzelbacher asked Obama if he would pay more taxes if the Democrat won. Obama, then a US senator from Illinois, conceded that he might.
Wurzelbacher then told Family Security Matters, a rightwing group: “Initially, I started off asking him if he believed in the American dream and he said yes, he does – and then I proceeded to ask him, then, why he’s penalising me for trying to fulfill it.”
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Obama won – and Wurzelbacher’s brush with fame soured with revelations that he was both not a fully licensed plumber and owed more than $1,000 in taxes.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Fifteen years ago, Wurzelbacher became famous after arguing with the then Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, on the campaign trail in Toledo, Ohio.
In the final debate, the Republican candidate, Arizona senator John McCain, repeatedly invoked “Joe the Plumber” as an everyman who stood to suffer under Obama.
Obama won – and Wurzelbacher’s brush with fame soured with revelations that he was both not a fully licensed plumber and owed more than $1,000 in taxes.
On Monday, Tom LoBianco, a reporter and biographer of current Republican presidential hopeful Mike Pence, said: “Every time I hear about Ivy League folks running as ‘populists’, it’d make me wonder about Joe the Plumber and why you don’t get more actual blue-collar candidates.”
LoBianco also linked Wurzelbacher’s brush with fame to current arguments over the song Rich Men North of Richmond and its author, the factory worker turned singer Oliver Anthony.
News of Wurzelbacher’s death, LoBianco said, “meshes with … Oliver Anthony asking politicos to stop stealing his tune for their benefit.
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