No wonder they hate Joe the Plumber, Part 2

As Abe Greenwald makes clear, “Something Happened.”

One week ago, the Zogby tracking poll had Barack Obama beating John McCain by almost 10 points among likely voters. Today, it’s a four-point game. Yesterday, IBD reported, “After seesawing between 3.2 and 3.9 points over the weekend, Obama’s lead slipped to 2.8[.]” Gallup’s newest traditional poll has Obama leading by two points. Probing coverage of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe didn’t seem to do what the mainstream media had hoped. With the public losing interest in the crusade against Palin, a fresh news cycle has ushered in a serious challenge for Barack Obama. Americans are scared that the Democratic nominee is a socialist. And it’s not attack ads or robocalls that have created this impression, but Obama’s own words. Up until now, Obama has enjoyed a twenty-six-point lead among self-professed moderates, who make up roughly half the electorate. As there is nothing moderate about collectivism and wealth redistribution, the new charges could bury Obama.
Barack Obama’s greatest advantage over John McCain has been his ability to convince Americans that he will take them someplace, transport them out of the War on Terror paradigm, off of the anti-American planet we currently inhabit and into a future in which America is somehow still the global leader without actually being better than any other nation, where somehow everyone is furnished with healthcare and education without this crippling the economy. Over the past few weeks, this last “somehow” has been defined. And if it points toward where Obama intends to take the U.S., Americans are rightfully fearful.

As they should be.
Even Obama himself admits that the “change” he promises won’t be easy:

Obama’s democratic socialist sympathies first came to light in when he told Joe Wurzelbacher of his plan to “spread the wealth.” The worrisome sentiment was reinforced by an unearthed 2001 radio interview, during which Obama seemed saddened by the Supreme Court’s inability redistribute wealth in accordance with need. On Sunday, Obama sounded a further collectivist note, when he told a Colorado crowd, “Now, make no mistake: the change we need won’t come easy or without cost. We will all need to tighten our belts, we will all need to sacrifice and we will all need to pull our weight because now more than ever, we are all in this together.”

Ayn Rand took a somewhat different view. And aside from a delusional few, so do most libertarians. So, argues Greenwald, do most Americans:

Americans don’t take kindly to the government-knows-best kind school of problem solving. If wealth is to be spread around, it will be spread by those who earn it. Sacrifices may be made, but they will not be dictated. Even today’s PC-damaged Americans suspect that the collective good is most effectively, and ethically, realized in pursuing individual achievement. Less than twenty years after the defeat of the Soviet Union, we’re faced with a potential president who thinks it’s his place to tell us what we must give up and how it will be apportioned to bring about the common good. This won’t fly. Eighty-four percent of Americans oppose the government redistribution of wealth.

I hope it is eighty four percent of Americans, and I hope they are starting to wake up. If they wait till next Wednesday, it will be too late.
While there has been evidence of extreme ideology in the Obama camp (it has certainly been presented here), as I keep saying, ordinary voters are not activists, political junkies, or readers of libertarian blogs. So it took someone they could relate to — Joe the Pumber — to get ordinary voters’ attention:

Before Joe the Plumber, Obama managed to sell indecision as moderation and detachment as self-possession. Evidence of extreme ideology was skillfully sidestepped as ancient happenstance (as in the case of his association with Bill Ayers), or partisan misinterpretation (as in the case of Obama’s abortion record). But Obama’s sympathies are both recently held and clear-as-day. And that’s a serious problem.

It is a serious problem, but if not enough people pay attention right now, it will become ineradicably serious.
Joe the Plumber got their attention in ways that activists could not have and in ways that no amount of kvetching about Bill Ayers could have. I can condemn Bill Ayers’ communist ideology and respectability from now till doomsday, and that has no effect on the electorate. The average person would say “Bill who”? But Joe the Plumber anyone can understand.
Many pundits have observed that negative attacks tend to turn off voters, and some newer commenters have told me repeatedly that my attacks on Bill Ayers are a losing “strategy.” What they don’t understand is that while I support McCain, this is my blog with my thoughts, not a McCain strategy. Furthermore, ordinary voters don’t read this blog; when I last polled the readers, the number of undecideds was ridiculously small. (3 out of 176, to be exact.)
If attacking Bill Ayers is negative, so be it. At the risk of not persuading those three potential voters, I’ll just say what I want.
Those who like Bill Ayers can keep attacking Joe the Plumber.
How much of any of these negative attacks will trickle down to the voters, I don’t know.
But I suspect that if the voters were forced to decide, attacks on Joe the Plumber might poll worse than attacks on Bill Ayers.