CNN

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

HEMPSTEAD, New York (CNN) – Joe the Plumber, get ready. Your wild ride has just begun.

If past is prologue, you have no idea what's about to hit you.

Joe the Plumber, of course, is Joe Wurzelbacher, whose name came up so many times at last night's final presidential debate here that it seemed as if the people in the hall, the tens of millions watching around the country, and moderator Bob Schieffer were just getting in the way of what John McCain and Barack Obama really wanted to do.

They just wanted to speak to Joe. And they gazed right into the camera lens and did exactly that.

Mr. Wurzelbacher, you may have just become the next Vicki Lynne Cole.

If you've never heard of her, she once lived right down the road from you. And she's the prime example of what can happen when presidential campaigns find useful symbolism in the words of a citizen by the side of the trail.

Forty years ago this month, during the final stages of Richard Nixon's campaign against Hubert Humphrey, his campaign train stopped briefly in the town of Deshler, Ohio, population 2,000. It's about 45 miles southwest of Toledo, the part of Ohio where Joe Wurzelbacher lives.

Vicki Lynne Cole was an 8th grader who went to Nixon's whistle-stop. Evidently, at her school, the call had gone out for volunteers to serve as "Nixonettes."

She had made a sign to hold up– something about Lyndon Johnson and Nixon–but lost it, and picked another one off the ground. Reportedly she didn't look at it before she held it up.

"Bring Us Together Again," the sign said.

Well. . . .

It remains unclear whether Nixon himself actually noticed the sign, but someone on his staff did.

And before long, Vicki Cole, 13 years old, became one of the stars of the presidential campaign.

"I saw many signs in this campaign. . . ."

That's how Nixon would usually lead in to his invocation of Vicki Cole. The sign in Deshler, Ohio, he told crowds, would motivate him and would become the theme of his presidency. If he were elected, he would never forget the inspiration he had received from Vicki. He would bring the nation together.

Soon enough, the word "again" was dropped from campaign references to Vicki 's sign. "Bring us together" were the words Nixon used. He talked about Vicki in Madison Square Garden; he talked about Vicki at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.

You see what may be coming, Joe?

When Nixon won the election, and plans for his inauguration were announced, press reports said that there would be 56 marching bands, 39 floats, the French Dukes Drill Team, three Lipizzaner horses. . .and Vicki Lynne Cole.

Vicki's words, Nixon said, would be "the great objective of this administration."

(Soon enough, though, "Bring Us Together" was amended to "Forward Together." Vicki's sign had been run through political rewrite.)

So, Joe. . . .

You're in it now, whether that's what you really want or not.

Enjoy it. Hope you like Lipizzaner horses.