Dick Greenhaus said,

hell, if Joe as a working plumber has saved enough over fifteen years to consider buying a business that nets a quarter-million annually, he should be in out Treasury Department. We need folks like that.

Nice thought, Dick, and clever, but on thinking it over, we don't know what he's been doing in plumbing. He may have been a highly-paid manager in a big plumbing company, now looking to buy his boss out. He may have inherited a pile of money, so he has a big down payment. He may have a sweetheart deal with the preexisting owner which allows him to pay off most of the "time payment" out of the profits over a period of years, which is not too unusual. That sort of thing can be very attractive to a seller of a business, for tax reasons.

But it's clear that Joe Plumber doesn't illustrate or establish the point McCain wanted to use him for.

Dave Oesterreich