Gop Already Misses Colin Powell
Former Gen. Colin Powell walked away from the presidential sweepstakes yesterday, and who can blame him?
America’s most admired man had lived for months in the center of a cyclone, constantly pounded by other people’s expectations and demands. Even though he has plighted his troth to the Republican Party, many GOP regulars spurned him.
Conservative purists - including such stalwarts as Gary Bauer, David Keene, Paul Weyrich and the ubiquitous Grover Norquist - threatened to stage a Hatfield-McCoy feud if the general entered the race. They accused him of apostasy on such fundamental issues as affirmative action, gun control, taxes, abortion, government spending and welfare reform.
Meanwhile, another band of right-wingers suffocated America’s favorite role model with their love. William Kristol, who earlier had wooed Phil Gramm, led a daring crusade to push Powell toward the presidency. In the process, he crossed swords with former comrades in arms, dismissing Bauer et al as “portly conservatives” with dour dispositions.
Kristol, Bill Bennett, Arianna Huffington and others saw Powell as the incarnation of American Greatness. They noted that the general had to overcome bigotry, bullets and bureaucrats in his march toward the history books. Equally impressive, Alma Powell started raising their family in Bull Connor’s Birmingham.
Yet in praising Colin Powell, some of his backers helped bury him. A few political lowlifes attached themselves to his cause - not necessarily because they adored the man, but because they saw him as a meal ticket whose personal history would sell great on the political market.
Hucksters tried to hype the general as a black Moses who could climb to the mountaintop, retrieve the secrets of human concord - and spare pale-faced Republicans the unpleasantness of having to campaign in poor, black neighborhoods.
Other “friends” treated Powell as if he were a black Charlie McCarthy - a dummy in need only of words and ideas. One young shill in Washington tried to stir up support with an incredible pitch: “He doesn’t believe in anything, which means we can mold him and accomplish all the wonderful things we couldn’t do during the Reagan and Bush days.”
The Powell controversy exposed again the unbearable whiteness of Washington’s GOP establishment. Almost none of the general’s unofficial defenders or detractors gave him credit for having his own mind. They treated him as an empty vessel into which they could pour their fears or ambitions.
These folks undoubtedly made his decision easier: With friends like those, who needs foes? But his withdrawal from the competition creates a vacuum of expectations. Powell promised to give the campaign something it desperately needed - a man with unimpeachable character, obvious charisma and a record of leadership.
Furthermore, he stepped back from the stage at a crucial moment. The day before his announcement, Republicans got slapped around at the polls. They fell short in their attempt to capture the Virginia General Assembly for the first time in 120 years, and Democrats won a big victory in the Kentucky gubernatorial canvass.
The GOP learned that it didn’t win a mandate last year, only an audition - and some Americans don’t like what they have seen. The giddiness Republicans felt last fall has begun to harden into something more akin to gloom. People may not respect Bill Clinton or like liberal welfare policies, but that doesn’t mean voters automatically will follow the elephants.
Republicans need Colin Powell more than ever, not only because he epitomizes the American Dream, but also because he can help the still-insular party spread its wings. He would erase the stereotypes Democrats depend upon - the canard that Republicans appeal only to country-clubbers and cranky suburbanites. Powell would help assure voters that the Party of Lincoln has not become the Party of David Duke.
Absence already has made the heart of some would-be supporters grow fonder, and Powell obviously will keep his phone lines open and his calendar flexible. He made a sensible decision not to pursue an office for which he is not yet prepared. But don’t believe for a moment that his public career has drawn to a close.
Abraham Lincoln noted coyly when asked about his own desire for a second term that “no man knows when that presidential grub gets to gnawing at him, just how deep it will get until he has tried it.” Just so with Powell.
Here’s a gratuitous prediction: When the final bit of mud has flown and Republicans have crowned a nominee, Powell will stand again in the spotlight - despite protestations to the contrary - as Bob Dole’s running mate and likely heir to the most important office in all of democracy.
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