Okay, so this guy has come under the media spotlight. Being a total political junkie, I'm shocked to see people both amateur and professional digging into Joe Wurzelbacher (aka Joe the Plumber^TM).

I won't go into the crap people are bringing up, but one thing they've done is check Joe's voter registration. Politico has this on that topic.

Turns out, they had a hard time finding his registration, because his name was "possibly misspelled".

Now, Joe and I have something in common. We both live in Ohio. As an Ohioan, we had some interesting news, covered in this NY Times article. Apparently the GOP won a court case, requiring the Ohio Secretary of State to order that all voter registrations be "verified" against the government database.

So here's the deal -- Joe here is a registered Republican, who's clearly planning on voting for McCain. McCain himself has elevated him to the national stage by focusing on it in last night's debate.

Unfortunately, Joe fell victim to the Republican's attempts to purge voter rolls in Ohio, and thanks to his name being "possibly misspelled" he'll possibly be disenfranchised.

This is the story that the Democrats need to be pushing right now. Turn the media tempest about Joe the Plumber^TM into Joe the Plumber Who Is Being Disenfranchised By His Own Party^TM.

Let's not smear the guy, he's just a regular, uh, Joe. Let's tell the story of how the Republicans are trying to accuse poor old Joe of voter fraud, and get a national spotlight on the legal maneuvering going on to interfere with Ohio's election.