Poupon Powell
Corry, John
"Poupon Powell" Hone knows what Colin Powell really thinks, or what he will do, and it may be he does not know himself. Not long ago, though, he was supposed to lift Amer ican politics out of the slough of...
...Media enthusiasm knew no bounds, and exactly where Powell stood on any issue was irrelevant...
...In 199o, Parade magazine raised the possibility of a Bush-Powell ticket in the next presidential election...
...He may have been telling us something here...
...Political commentators interpreted this as high-mindedness...
...Loyalty demanded that he stay with the party of Presidents Bush and Reagan...
...JOHN CoiutY is The American Spectator's senior correspondent...
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...o Hone knows what Colin Powell really thinks, or what he will do, and it may be he does not know himself...
...Powell would remain a Democrat...
...With over 27 years' experience...
...Actually, no one who was serious about politics would bother looking...
...Powell is serious about his image, and this one did not seem quite right...
...The dais from which he spoke was decorated with cans of jalapeno peppers, sacks of bun mix, and jars of hot sauce, and, according to the Austin American-Statesman, he was paid $6o,ooo for speaking...
...The two parties might be divid ed on broad principles, but they had their internal differences, and neither was run solely to please one individual...
...He said he did not plan to speak at the Republican convention...
...You're too socially conscious...
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...Powell might not fit the Republican Party, but the party might be made to fit him...
...This is a position more or less above politics, and he could hold it in either a Dole or Clinton administration...
...Republican leaders may talk about the Big Tent and mean it, but there is the pull from friends, family, and history...
...But what Powell will do is unknown, and it may be he will never do anything...
...He said, mysteriously, "I am practicing my politics privately...
...Baker said smoothly that Powell could be a candidate for vice president...
...You were raised in an old-fashioned Democratic home...
...Everyone knows the blacks are wedded to Clinton...
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...Powell is nominated by acclamation, and finally things work out...
...He's not an entrepreneur...
...Then, in November, he said he would not run for office, although he promised Republicans he would register in their party...
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...The media loved Colin Powell, and Bob Dole would have killed to get him on the ticket...
...Powell's candidacy, or noncandidacy, was media-borne even from the beginning, and it culminated in the frenzy of last fall...
...None of this was dignified, although Powell might have weathered it, but the press was growing restive...
...Kristol did not necessarily endorse the Powell candidacy-although clearly he favored it-but more important, as a Republican seer and strategist he Iotqion Poiiwll d1 The GOP's Rnointed One may practice his politics priuateli., but the bigger mlJsterU is whU he is ultimatelg not a Democrat...
...He seems to have found politics beneath him, and consequently he has squandered the glow from a year ago, and made himself look foolish...
...Meanwhile, it has been reported that Powell would like to be secretary of state...
...He said he would not campaign for Dole...
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...Simpson verdict...
...I n late June it found it...
...Powell might have been just as skillful a bureaucrat, but he looked more like a warrior, and warriors had no place in the Democratic Party...
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...Powell spoke in Austin, Texas, before some i,ooo owners of Schlotzsky's sandwich shops...
...We don't have to manufacture Republicans, you know, and what would he add to the ticket...
...If I had to bet today on one person for the Republican presidential nomination, I'd put my money on Colin Powell," William Kristol wrote in the first issue of the Weekly Standard last September...
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...I know you well enough, and I don't think you'd be comfortable with some of the Republican agenda...
...In fact, the idea that Pow ell was a Republican was never far-fetched...
...All you have to do is listen to Mark Fuhrman...
...And here is a Midwestern senator, faultlessly in the middle: "The question is, could Powell click the way Perot clicked in 1992...
...Admiral William Crowe, his predecessor as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had sup ported Bill Clinton for pres ident (and been appointed Ambassador to the Court of St...
...They do not express them openly, though, because they have that most Republican of all fears: God forbid someone should think they are racist...
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...It had been too worshipful too long, and it was looking for a corrective...
...Ken Starr hands up an indictment, and congressional Democrats turn honest...
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...It is a racist society," he said after the O.J...
...Grumpy conservatives may have had reservations, but grumpy conservatives don't count...
...Powell was the Democrats' worst nightmare, and the Republicans' best hope...
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...Clinton appoints Powell...
...He was dissatisfied with things as they were...
...He's not a risk taker...
...The speech was widely noted, along with the fee, peppers, bun mix, and hot sauce...
...The Sunday morning talk shows took a great leap forward...
...Powell also mentioned what Spencer told him when he was interviewed by Henry Louis Gates for the New Yorker...
...Strobe Talbott jumps ship...
...George Will and Charles Krauthammer noted this then in their newspaper columns...
...He was a public figure of unblemished reputation, and a good guy as well, and if anyone knew anything bad about him, they just weren't saying...
...Name Address City State Zip HAMILTON 5204 Oak, Falls Village CT 06031-5005...
...It was simply impos sible to think of Powell as being comfortable with, say, Pat Schroeder...
...Meanwhile, he was off on another book tour, chatting once again with Katie Couric and all the gang, this time to sell the paperback versions of the hardcover...
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...Powell says Spencer told liim, "Colin, if you ever do go into politics, do it as a Democrat...
...It is the only reference to Spencer in the 643-page memoir, and it waves there like a flag...
...He transcended race and partisan politics, and personified the American dream...
...22 September r 9 9 6 . The American Spectator MIU1 ' %iSSOAT n su 4W7...
...Not long ago, though, he was supposed to lift Amer ican politics out of the slough of despond into which it seemed to have fallen...
...then he said he did...
...Registered Republican or not, he was still keeping his options open...
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...One imagines Colin Powell telling Alma Powell of his decision to enroll as a Republican, and her saying, "Colin, how could you...
...Presumably, then, Powell would never hold office unless he were drafted, or else swept away by popular demand...
...Many possibilities now suggest themselves, and here is one: Clinton wins, and Warren Christopher retires...
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...Gays would have their own NCO clubs, and women would drive M-iAi tanks...
...It's not in his character...
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...And here is a freshman Midwestern congressman, who speaks enthusiastically about the growing number of minorities in the party, but does not think black candidates can attract white voters: "We'd never have to worry about Powell being a candidate...
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...Meanwhile, he was off on his fabled book tour, while he kept his "options open...
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...No one who was serious about politics could ever find the perfect fit that Powell sug gested he was seeking...
...He crit icized party positions on abortion, gun control, welfare reform, and affirmative action...
...There had been a laying on of hands, so to speak, and he was destined to follow them into the White House...
...Try as he might, it was hard for Powell to think of himself as a Republican...
...He would declare himself a presidential candidate, and rescue the Republican Party from the conservatives who now controlled it...
...Nature...
...He also said, however, that Mrs...
...A man who knows him well, and therefore declines to be identified, says Powell wants to be president, but that he thinks he would lose his "moral credibility" if he were to admit it...
...There is no chance of that happening now, of course, but it does explain some of Powell's recent behavior...
...Gore, though, is now tainted, and at their convention, the Democrats decide that an African-American general would be just right...
...simply return any book for a full refund of the purchase price...
...Newsweek was out the next day...
...We don't know what he'd actually do until he did it...
...It also was reported that Schlotzsky's got him for $6o,ooo because it booked early...
...Possibly he thinks the party still carries old baggage...
...We don't know...
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...Sam Donaldson said a Powell presidency would be "good for the country...
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...He could yank it away from its distressing rightward tilt, and move it back to the center...
...In a way, his supposed candidacy and party affiliation were both accidental...
...Then she wrote a Sunday column in which she said Powell was "pretending he can be inside politics and outside politics at the same time, disguising his lack of nerve with high moral language...
...Powell may be loyal to past presidents, but he has qualms about being a Republican, and in truth many Republicans continue to have qualms about him...
...The old conventional wisdom on Powell, it said, was "Above politics as usual...
...James's as a reward), but Crowe always seemed more like a bureaucrat than a war rior...
...Clinton is forced to resign, and Gore becomes president...
...Maureen Dowd of the New York Times called Bill Kristol to confer...
...Or anyway, so it seemed...
...Old advocates began to rethink their positions...
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...The search for a perfect fit had nowhere to go, although many of the com mentators insisted that a variation would be useful...
...Flags and bunting and the sound of bugles became him...
...He'll talk about running, but never do it...
...BY JUHn CURRY The American Spectator • September 19 9 6 21 gave it official status...
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...It teemed with peo ple who saw the military not so much as an instrument of war as a vehicle for social change...
...As he told Barbara Walters, "I have not been able to find a perfect fit in either of the two existing parties...
...Besides, it was known that when the Clinton administration had sounded him out for a possible Cabinet position, he had not shown much interest...
...Here is a border state congressman, who is one of the party's old bulls: "Is Powell really a Republican...
...In 1987, a television interviewer pointed out to the former senator that the Democrats had Jesse Jackson, while the Republicans did not have a prominent black as even a token...
...The first public suggestion that he might grace a Republican ticket came from Howard Baker...
...then he said he would...
...He seems to bane found politics beneath him, and consequentlg he has squandered the glow from a gear ago...
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...Powell has hinted at this in his memoir My American Journey...
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...But all this has changed, of course, and Powell's aura has fled...
...The new one was "Mario Cuomo in a uniform...
...He recalls the advice he got from Stu Spencer, the California political consultant who, among other things, practically invented Ronald Reagan when he first ran for office...
...It was hard to imagine a man as wedded to the military as he was to be a Democrat...
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...he also would be more comfortable as a Democrat...
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...They had elevated him through the command, and he in turn had served them well...
...Commentators quoted Kristol, and then interviewed one another...
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...but it was really more like disdain...
...Powell was free at last from writing his memoirs, and could lead a great crusade...
...Therefore we may look at him now without tears, and discover the awful truth: He does not want to run for office, but would not mind being anointed...
Vol. 29 • September 1996 • No. 9
