Yesterday the Daily Beast posted drafts of victory/concession night speeches Sarah Palin had intended to deliver one year ago—had she not been prohibited from doing so by John McCain’s staff.
It’s pretty predictable stuff, but there’s one thing I didn’t see anyone mention yesterday, amid all the buzz leading up to last night’s elections: win or lose, Palin was planning on referencing Tito the Builder.
Palin’s speeches would have described him as a happy memory from the campaign, “the construction worker and new American citizen who said at one of our rallies: ‘I was born in Columbia, but I was made in the USA.’”
But you’re more likely to remember Tito Munoz (his real name) as the b-side Joe the Plumber who turned up at a McCain rally in Virginia to uncork a stream of invective about supposed press sins: pro-Obama bias, cover-ups of Obama’s true relationship to Bill Ayers, Cindy McCain bashing, etc. Mother Jones’s David Corn was both a target and the prime recorder of the exchange, which, if you’re in the mood for an absurdist campaign ’08 flashback—and who isn’t!—you can see here.
Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.