"Joe the Plumber" is running for Congress

GlobalPost

“Joe the Plumber” – real name Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher – is running for Congress in Ohio.

Wurzelbacher, who was temporarily a poster boy in the 2008 presidential election for average Americans who would suffer under then-candidate Barack Obama’s tax reform plans, filed his statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission on Friday, the Hill reports. He also registered a “Joe for Congress 2012” campaign committee.

According to the Hill:

Wurzelbacher's FEC filings indicate he would run as a Republican in Ohio's 9th district, which was heavily rejiggered during a redistricting process in which Ohio lost two House seats due to slow population growth. The Democratic-leaning district runs from Cleveland to Toledo.

In 2008, Wurzelbacher met Obama during a campaign stop in his neighborhood and complained that he would pay higher taxes under his tax plan.

Republican candidate John McCain talked about Wurzelbacher’s plight in a presidential debate, arguing that Democrats’ policies would squeeze other middle class voters like him.

It later emerged that Wurzelbacher was not a licensed plumber but a plumber’s assistant who owed back taxes to the state of Ohio and would likely get a tax cut under Obama's plan, USA Today reports.

"It is utterly bizarre that McCain chose this guy as the poster child, because this guy would get a tax cut under Obama, and wouldn't under McCain," William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, told USA Today at the time.

Since then, Wurzelbacher has tried to monetize his brush with history by giving motivational speeches and writing books, the Hill reports.

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