Friday, October 17, 2008

WWCPD? What would Colin Powell do, and so what?

Huffington Post reports today that Colin Powell is almost certainly ready to endorse Barack Obama for President, and I for one am impressed and encouraged by this tidbit of news. Back in the 90s when I was both a teenager and much less knowledgable about politics Powell was someone who floated into my consciousness as uniquely impressive. Late in the 90s when he basically refused to run for President supposedly largely based on his wife's objections I took that as yet another reason to be impressed with his judgement and values.

While serving in the Bush administration Powell did a number of things that tarnished my opinion of him as both a leader and a person. When considering some of his most egregious acts during his tenure under Bush, I often imagined (and some reporst would support this idea) that he convinced himself to go along with Bush Cheney & Co. under the umbrella of serving our country best by working within their team to try and offer a stable, sensible voice among some truly nutty wingnuts, like Cheney. At the same time, and through all of this I know that Powell and I are two vastly different people in terms of our political beliefs and values.

So what's this all worth, and why does Powell matter? Well, I would suggest this tidbit is newsworthy, if accurate for two salient reasons:
  1. Powell is understood primarily to be not only a military man, but an elderstatesman within the U.S. military establishment. The guy was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (also only African American to serve on the Joint Chiefs so far), Secretary of State, and National Security Advisor to Raegan and Bush 1.
  2. I believe Powell is seen and will continue to be seen as eminently either nonpartisan or, if at all partisan moderately Republican across wide swaths of undecided America. While Powell's own endorsement may not have an enormous measured impact, I do think it plays into a larger narrative about the middle of the American electorate slipping away from McCain based on a stew of different issues swirling around the economy, his choice of Palin, recent erratic behavior, and the simple sense that one candidate in this election has brightly out-shined the other in terms of confidence and leadership over the last month of rocky news for our nation.
Now, that said, I am sure there are parts of America, and I hate to say this, where folks will look at a Powell endorsement and simply see one African American man endorsing another. I would posit, however, that these folks are likely already decided and are waiting anxiously to tote out their monkey dolls or other bizarro paraphernalia to the next local Sarah Palin rally. Meanwhile many places in the land of the undecided I can see Powell's voice resonating in interesting ways.

Perhaps the larger trends are the real story, but I for one was pleasantly surprised (although not that surprised) to see this headline today, and I am encouraged to see Powell follow the undecided Matts of New Hampsire constituency in joining the Obama fold!

image from World Economic Form published under Creative Commons license.

Editor's Note: This post was originally posted on 10/15, but I have bumped it back up in response to Powell's upcoming appearance on national TV (Sunday morning).

6 comments:

Matt said...

Is it just my screen or is there something messed up with that picture you posted? At first I thought he was unshaven but then realized the whole picture looked like it had dirty pixels or something. So strange...

John said...

I grabbed a different picture, think this is all fixed now!

John said...

The problem with the first was that it was from his wikipedia page and the original image was huge, so when it squished down it distorted strangely.

Matt said...

Okay, I was thinking Colin was looking a bit disheveled.

Anonymous said...

I've also heard Colin's decision not to run is similar to his personality as a battlefield commander. He was always the type that wouldn't go into battle unless it was a SURE win. He played it safe a lot and that's not meant as criticism. Some believe he opted not to run for the fact it would in no means be a slam dunk case. Also while I agree his position on Bush's cabinet at one point diminished my view of him, that changed when I saw in the end how much they apparently seemed to bump heads, and the fact he got the hell out of dodge after the first term.

Justin

Anonymous said...

Actually, I didn't think of it before, but this endorsement and the timing of it shows exactly what I was saying.

"As always, he is holding his cards close and waiting for more information," one adviser told CNN's John King in August.

Obama has a CLEAR lead at this point and time is running out, and Colin waits until now to officially endorse him.

Justin