Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, who just won a seat on his Ohio county’s Republican committee, told TPMDC that he decided to run for public office to “weed out the liars, cheaters and thieves.” He has a few years, he said, before he asks God whether to run for higher office.
“I pray that he doesn’t want me to run for office,” Wurzelbacher said in an interview last night.
The Toledo Blade Tuesday reported that Wurzelbacher had won a seat on the Lucas County Republican Committee, a local party in the midst of a turf war between its chairman and a rival who claims he’s the rightful chair. The Blade reports that Wurzelbacher was recruited by the rival camp.
Wurzelbacher dismissed this as ego-driven politics and said he hasn’t taken a side.
“I go around the country telling people to get involved with their government,” he said, referencing the 200 tea parties he’s spoken at. “I’m a man, if I’m gonna tell somebody to do something I’m the first one.”
As for the future, Joe the Plumber — made famous when he debated then-Sen. Barack Obama on the campaign trail in front of his home and joined the McCain campaign — says he’s not thinking about it yet.
“I have a 14-year-old son that I want to spend as much time with as possible,” he said. “Once he’s gone to college I’m going to sit down and talk to God” about whether he should run for another public office. But he says he’s reluctant to surround himself with those “liars, cheaters and thieves” in government.
One potential candidate he likes, his favorite for the presidential race, is a “dark horse” who, hasn’t announced any intentions to run yet: Herman Cain, a talk radio host in Georgia and former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza.
Cain is an extremely “smart man who I think would do a great job,” Wurzelbacher said.
The two have something in common: In 1994, according to his web site bio, Cain “challenged President Bill Clinton’s health care proposal” during a town hall.
According to a transcript from the time, Cain said, during their back and forth, “Mr. President, with all due respect, your calculation on what the impact would do, quite honestly, is incorrect.”
Cain is popular among conservatives in Georgia, with several hundred people joining “Draft Herman” groups on Facebook and elsewhere.
Disqus Conversations
Click here to read the Disqus Commenting FAQ.