BusinessWeek Logo
Flush Times For Joe

Oleksiy Maksymenko/Alamy

By David Kiley

Flush Times For Joe

Business is brisk for Joe the Plumber—Joe Francis, that is, the Amarillo (Tex.) plumber at joetheplumber.com. Ronnie Bishop, who manages Francis’s 10-person shop, says the site hadn’t had a single hit for months. Then came the Oct. 16 Presidential debate, when the other Joe the Plumber, Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher of Ohio, became a celebrity. The hits are now at 320,000 and climbing, with lots of people asking for the T-shirts Francis’ plumbers wear on calls. (Are they usually for sale? “They are now,” he says.) He’s also getting offers for the domain name. The highest so far: $800,000.