"Joe the Plumber" finally hits the McCain campaign trail

Washington, Oct 28 : Joe Wurzelbacher or "Joe the Plumber," will be making his first appearance on the campaign trail on Tuesday on behalf of the McCain campaign.

Wurzelbacher will join former Republican Rob Portman and several small business owners for a bus tour across Ohio tomorrow starting at a flag shop in Columbus with additional planned stops in Dayton, Middletown, Milford and Cincinnati.

McCain will be returning to Ohio on Thursday for a two-day bus tour of his own but no word as of yet whether America's most famous plumber will joining the GOP nominee for that trip.

In John McCain's telling, Joe Wurzelbacher is the American everyman who confronted Democrat Barack Obama about his plans to raise taxes and got him to admit that his real plan is to "spread the wealth around."

No matter that this is one of the basic principles of the US progressive tax system. Wurzelbacher suggested that Obama was espousing socialist views, and McCain agreed.

The McCain campaign, thinking it has a winning symbol, has repeatedly invoked Joe on the stump, in TV ads and on bumper stickers.

The real live Joe is more complicated. He's expressed a variety of views about the role of government that McCain himself might not agree with.

Perhaps to shield him from more questions along those lines, and to preserve his symbolic value, Wurzelbacher has not been on the trail with McCain.

But on Tuesday, a day after McCain was in the area, Joe will make several stops in southern Ohio to promote the McCain message.

ANI