Make way Barack Obama and Sarah Palin -- it looks like there's another polling phenomenon in Florida: The Joe the Plumber Effect.

As he pounds Obama for telling America's most famous handyman that he wants to ''spread the wealth around,'' John McCain is improving his standing in Florida, with a Wednesday poll showing the Republican presidential candidate with a 1 percentage-point lead.

The Mason-Dixon Polling and Research survey shows McCain's numbers have remained static at 46 percent since early October, while Obama's support has decreased three percentage points to 45.

The results mirror three other Florida polls this week that, taken together, show the race is dead even as Democratic nominee Obama's momentum appears to have slowed. Not only does the economic crisis -- a benefit to Obama -- no longer lead the news casts, McCain has finally seized on a pocketbook issue by using the plumber to talk taxes, welfare and socialism, said Mason-Dixon pollster Brad Coker.

''Joe the Plumber created the situation where Obama made a public relations mistake about spreading the wealth around,'' Coker said. ``So there's a Joe the Plumber Effect to the degree that McCain finally found some sort of economic message that people can relate to -- taxes.''

Coker didn't specifically poll Joe the Plumber as an issue. Personality issues can fade in importance as campaigns go on, as happened with both Obama and Republican vice presidential candidate Palin.

But taxes, Coker said, ''are a big, big deal'' in Florida, a state with no income tax and incessant complaints about sales and property tax increases.

Until now, Obama has successfully pounded the message home that 95 percent of people would get a tax cut. And that includes Joe the Plumber, aka Samuel Joe Wurzelbacher, who had his by-now-famous exchange with Obama when the Democrat walked his precinct in Toledo, Ohio.

Wurzelbacher, who makes about $40,000 yearly, would actually get a bigger tax cut under Obama's plan than McCain's, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. Obama would raise taxes on individuals making more than $200,000 yearly and on families with an income of $250,000.

McCain invoked Wurzelbacher's name repeatedly during last week's debate in an effort to say that small businesses would see a tax increase under Obama -- though a Tax Policy Center analysis said, ''The vast majority of small businesses would not be affected by Obama's income tax'' increase that targets about 4.6 percent of all businesses in the top two income-bracket tiers.

For months, Obama has insisted on the campaign trail and even in his acceptance speech that he'd cut taxes on 95 percent of all taxpayers.

McCain has tried to frame him as an overall tax raiser anyway and Republicans have tried to blame the Obama campaign for attacking Wurzelbacher after media reports showed he couldn't afford to buy the business he wanted and that he wasn't a licensed plumber.

''He's decided to completely make up, just fabricate this notion that I've been attacking Joe the Plumber,'' Obama said Tuesday in Miami. ``I got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber; that's why I want to give him a tax cut.''

Meantime, MSNBC dug video out of its archives that showed McCain in 2000 defending his call for higher taxes on the wealthy, bashed by a citizen in a town hall as ''socialism.'' Said McCain: ``We feel, obviously, that wealthy people can afford more.''

Gov. Charlie Crist, who had shied away from the McCain campaign when it focused more on personality attacks than pocket-book issues, has started campaigning for the ticket with renewed vigor, highlighting McCain's tax cuts in a Tuesday conference call with reporters.

Since Mason-Dixon's last October poll, voter support has increased the most in Crist's home base of Tampa Bay -- the state's most crucial battleground region -- where Obama has lost 4 percentage points as McCain has picked up 3.

Also, Hispanics seem to be breaking more toward McCain, while Obama's South Florida support -- where he needs to hold McCain to less than 35 percent of the vote -- has ticked down 3 points for the Democrat to 58 percent.

The error margin for the regional polling numbers, though, is about 8 percent -- compared to 4 percent for the entire poll -- so Coker cautioned against reading too much into the slight shifts and Crist's impact on the race right now.

With Crist likely at his side, McCain will press ahead with his tax attack Thursday on his newly named ''Keep Your Wealth'' bus tour that runs from Ormond Beach to Sarasota.

Already, the campaign has hosted a number of Florida and nationwide ''Joe the Plumber'' events to highlight McCain's support of small businesses, and Republicans say more of that can be expected to come.

Noting the politicization of Joe the Plumber, Tax Policy Center analysts Len Burman and Eric Toder wrote in their blog earlier this week: ``Poor Joe the Plumber has become a political metaphor: Something no one ever wants to be.''

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@