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Obama: McCain's in Cahoots With "Joe the CEO"

(CBS)
From CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic:

(RICHMOND, VA.) - Barack Obama brought two more Joe's to the spotlight today, "Joe the Hedge Fund Manager" and "Joe the CEO," as he continued to aggressively defend his tax plan. During a rally at the Richmond Coliseum, Obama argued that he is on "Joe the Plumber's" side while the more affluent Joes are allied with John McCain.

"Joe's cool, I got no problems with Joe. All I want to do is give Joe a tax cut," he said referring the Ohio plumber.

"But let's be clear who John McCain's fighting for. He's not fighting for 'Joe the Plumber', he's fighting for 'Joe the Hedge Fund Manager'. John McCain likes to talk about 'Joe the Plumber' but he's in cahoots with 'Joe the CEO.'"

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly responded to the charge, noting that Obama met with Google CEO Eric Schmidt in Florida yesterday. "Not only was he meeting with rich CEOs yesterday, it's Barack Obama who has taken more campaign cash from 'Joe Hedge Fund' than any other candidate," Bounds said in a statement.

At the rally, Obama made several attempts to explain and defend his plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts.

"Let me just see a show of hands – how many people make less than a quarter million," Obama asked the crowd of more than 10,000. After the majority raised their hand, Obama promised cut their taxes and said he was willing to raise his own.

"I do want to roll back the Bush tax cuts for people like me, I don't need a tax cut. I didn't need it back in 2000, or 2001, 2002," he explained. "So me rolling back those tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans so we can give relief to the nurse to the teacher and the bus driver and the janitor."

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