Final presidential debate

John McCain or Barack Obama, the star of final US presidential debate last Wednesday.

Surprise, it’s Joe the plumber.

The final face-to-face clash between the two fierce White House rivals granted an unexpected 15 minutes of fame to Joe Wurzelbacher.

Until Sunday, when he bumped into Senator Obama while the Democratic presidential candidate was doing a spell of door-to-door canvassing, Wurzelbacher was living a normal life, unknown to most of his fellow Americans.

But his encounter with Obama in Toledo, Ohio, and a spirited debate about the front-running Democrat’s tax policy, turned him into a media star.

Both candidates spoke directly to Wurzelbacher, turning him into a real life version of “Joe Six Pack,” the ordinary guy chasing the American dream, as they faced off in their third and final debate.

“Joe wants to buy the business that he’s been in for all these years,” McCain said, using Obama’s encounter with the plumber to flay his rival over a tax plan he maintains would shackle small businesses.

“Joe wants to buy the business that he’s been in for all these years. Worked 10, 12 hours a day. And he wanted to buy the business, but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes.”

Obama’s version

Obama hit back, with his version of his chat with Joe.

“What I essentially said to him was, five years ago, when you were in the position to buy your business, you needed a tax cut then,” Obama said.

“And what I want to do is to make sure that the plumber, the nurse, the firefighter, the teacher, the young entrepreneur who doesn’t yet have money, I want to give them a tax break now.”

Community hero

Wurzelbacher has emerged as a hero of the conservative talk radio community for his debate with Obama and his contention that the Obama economic plan would make him pay higher taxes and snuff out his hopes to expand his business.

He was asked about the conversation during an interview on Fox News on Tuesday.

“Robin Hood stole from greedy rich people and redistributed it to the peasants, so to speak, so if he’s calling us peasants, I kind of resent that,” Wurzelbacher said.

He added that the American Dream for him was “you work hard. You’re going to get what you want eventually.”

Agence France-Presse