McCain ruined my life, says Joe the Plumber.

It's well known that the tea party protesters have no time for John McCain. Indeed, when one of them spoke recently about wanting to take over the Republican party, he said "We don't like people like John McCain."

And, of course, Joe the Plumber is obviously going to favour the tea party movement, so how does he square that circle?

Easy, he has now decided that John McCain "screwed up" his life and that "I don't owe him shit."

Mr Wurzelbacher was thrust into the headlines worldwide just a few weeks before the elections when Mr McCain made repeated reference to him during one of the televised presidential debates. The two men had met days before and Mr Wurzelbacher had voiced fears about likely tax increases if Barack Obama were to become president. The unexpected notoriety caused instant problems, with reports the next day that he practised plumbing without a licence. And towards Mr McCain, Mr Wurzelbacher clearly feels no gratitude. "McCain was trying to use me," he told Scott Detrow, the reporter. "I happened to be the face of middle Americans. It was a ploy."

Mr Wurzelbacher says that today he is supporting the Tea Party movement, and the conservative right's threat to the former presidential candidate was crystallised yesterday in the shape of primary challenger JD Hayworth, a former congressman and conservative radio host who held the first rally of his campaign in Phoenix yesterday. Mr Hayworth will try to exploit long simmering suspicions of Mr McCain among members of the Republican Party's conservative base to win his party's nomination.

"I think his ideology is un-American," he said, "but he's one of the more honest politicians. At least he told us what he wanted to do."

That's quite a turn around, to now call John McCain "un-American". Now, it is beyond doubt that the McCain campaign used Joe the Plumber, but he didn't exactly make it hard for them to do so. Indeed, one got the distinct feeling that this guy was thoroughly enjoying his moment in the sun.

However, having found himself used by the McCain campaign as "the face of middle Americans", he is now throwing his lot in with the tea party protesters.

Because, of course, they won't use him for the exact same purposes will they? This is a guy who knows how to set himself up for a fall.

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Tags: Joe the Plumber, John McCain, tea party protests