Palin: Joe the Plumber Accomplished What No One Else Could

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) says Joe Wurzelbacher (aka “Joe the Plumber”) of Toledo, Ohio did what no one else could in the 2008 presidential race: get Barack Obama to “state his intentions in plain language.”

Those intentions, according to Palin: redistribution of wealth.

“I’ve really gotta hand it to Joe the Plumber over there in Toledo, Ohio,” Palin said. “See, somehow Joe accomplished what the rest of us hve not been able to accomplish, even the media could not accomplish this, but Joe did: he got our opponent to finally state his intentions in plain language.”

“Senator Obama says that he wants to spread the wealth,” Palin said, eliciting emphatic boos from the crowd, which earlier interrupted her to chant “I am Joe.”

“Which is when government takes your heard earned money, doles it out however a politician sees fit. Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth; [Sen.] Joe Biden [D-Del.] calls higher taxes patriotic, but Joe the Plumber said to him, it sounded like socialism. And now is not the time to experiment with that.”

Obama has taken heat from conservatives for telling Wurzelbacher, at a campaign stop in Toledo, that he wants to “spread the wealth” by raising taxes on individuals making over $250,000 per year to pay for lower taxes on those making less. Wurzelbacher has since called that idea “socialist.”