Plumbers of America, unite! You have nothing to lose but your drains!
I agree with Betsy Newmark:
If the McCain campaign can’t use this Obama quote to raise doubts about his attitude towards wealth and success, then they deserve the shellacking they seem headed for.
At this stage of the campaign, if the candidate wants it out there, he has to talk about it himself. This is a rare, clear moment of explicit self-revelation from Obama. If McCain can’t get traction from it, he’s Bob Dole and that’s that:
“Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed “more and more for fulfilling the American dream.”
“It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too,” Obama responded. “My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”