Three Up; Three Down

By The News Virginian Staff

Published: October 17, 2008

THREE UP

Regular Joe now has a last name, in the form of a vocation: Joe the Plumber, aka Joe Wurzelbacher, the plumber from Toledo, Ohio, who queried Barack Obama on taxes. Joe knows he’s no longer ordinary. “I’m kind of like Britney Spears having a headache,” he said. “Everybody wants to know about it.”
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Battered and bruised by his own party in recent years, Republican state Sen. Emmett Hanger emerged from oblivion with his plan for a grand entrance to the Shenandoah Valley off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Kudos to the senator, and Godspeed.
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John McCain did not save his campaign with his debate performance Wednesday, but neither did he kill it, a possibility given his October stumbles. He showed a spirit woefully missing in his second debate.

THREE DOWN

A summer spent clinging to the celestial coattails presidential frontrunner Barack Obama appeared to raise the stock of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. Then came the sharp stab of reality. The latest: A $2.5 billion budget gap might widen. Oh, and the state retirement pension fund is in the tank, too.
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Keep feeling for the bottom in the housing market. Construction starts plummeted 6.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 817,000, the second lowest rate in 50 years. Single-family home starts dropped 12 percent to 544,000, the lowest rate since 1982. Buddy, can you spare a building permit?
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His recent bombs having failed to score at the box office, Oliver Stone now seeks to nudge presidential polls with the carefully timed release of “W,” his take on the wild life and strange times of President Bush. Obama, as it turns out, does not particularly need the help. Stone, who wants to rewrite the present, can stick to rewriting history.