Fate of a Colin Powell presidency

And he's pro-choice, which puts a really low ceiling on him amongst the GOP primary electorate. He'd have to lie about that and adopt a hard anti-abortion stance.

Like the current POTUS? (Who mind you was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, and who was the opposite of a decorated four star general and Vietnam war hero.). My guess is that Powell encounters some friction in the primaries but ultimately manages to sail through to the nomination, once GOP leaders and base alike recognize that having a black military icon with roots in the Reagan admin is a sure win. The ugly backlash, if it is to come, will probably come out once he’s in the White House.
 
I think Powell would need to have an extremely popular VP, most likely someone with the right name recognition, and also (to gain the hard red states) old and white, most likely someone like John McCain. I say that, mostly because during the 2008 election, Powell was considered as a potential VP candidate before Sarah Palin.
When it comes to situations like the War on Terror, he may have focused the War on Terror primarily on destroying Al Qaeda, and capturing or more likely killing Osama Bin Laden.
He and McCain (Both Vietnam veterans) would already know what its like for the American people to fight a long war, and know that the will of the American people can only stay strong for too long, so no "Weapons of Mass Destruction" speech at the UN, or an invasion of Iraq in 2003.
This however would not stop the Arab Spring, or similar conflicts, so the War on Terror, like Judgement Day in the Terminator franchise, is inevitable (if you count T3 as cannon), but may happen either near the ladder half of his second term (If he wins one), or around the start of someone else's administration, and may most likely be fought primarily with predator drones, and bombing strikes.
He also seems to be quite bipartisan, willing to cooperate with the democrats, which would help to gain the votes of people who would usually vote democrat. He also has some Liberal view points, including pro-choice, reasonable gun control, and even supported the repeal of the don't ask, don't tell policy. Although the ladder may be used against him by his rivals, seeing how he was instrumental in its implementation.
 
You mean like Trump?
Except Colin Powell wouldn't be willing to do it. And as a black man in a GOP primary, he wouldn't be given a blank cheque to arbitrarily change his positions day to day.

People in this thread seem to want to handwaive away the real issue here as part of some fantasy of creating a different GOP.

You need to create a POD where there is a drastically different GOP or a drastically different Colin Powell or else his candidacy is a non-starter. OTL Colin Powell is going to be a 3rd place at best finisher in Iowa, and then get hammered by a bunch of racist innuendo that will sink him in South Carolina and beyond. For all of you wanting to point to Trump in some bizarre fashion as if that example would help Powell, the GOP base is not going to vote in a black man for the exact reasons Trump won.
 
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THe exit polls showed that Powell could certainly have gotten the nomination and won the Presidency in 96;


https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/opinion/07plissner.html



"On Nov. 5, 1996, Voter News Service — the organization hired by the TV networks to do exit polling — asked people at the polls, who had just given Bill Clinton 49 percent of the vote, Bob Dole 41 percent and Ross Perot 8 percent, how they would have voted if the Republican candidate had been Gen. Colin L. Powell. In an exit poll sample of 3,697 (three times the size of a standard high-grade public opinion survey), the result was this:

Powell: 50 percent.

Clinton: 38 percent.

Perot: 9 percent.


....


Most significantly, General Powell would have won the race because of the support of white voters — Bill Clinton outpolled him 2 to 1 among the blacks surveyed. Among white voters, whom Senator Dole had carried very narrowly (too narrowly for him to win), General Powell clobbered the incumbent, 53 percent to 33 percent."





And this certainly jives with my discussions and observations with/of my fellow Republicans at the time.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Except Colin Powell wouldn't be willing to do it. And as a black man in a GOP primary, he wouldn't be given a blank cheque to arbitrarily change his positions day to day.

People in this thread seem to want to handwaive away the real issue here as part of some fantasy of creating a different GOP.

You need to create a POD where there is a drastically different GOP or a drastically different Colin Powell or else his candidacy is a non-starter. OTL Colin Powell is going to be a 3rd place at best finisher in Iowa, and then get hammered by a bunch of racist innuendo that will sink him in South Carolina and beyond. For all of you wanting to point to Trump in some bizarre fashion as if that example would help Powell, the GOP base is not going to vote in a black man for the exact reasons Trump won.
I think you're going too hard the other way though. Even today, not everything about the GOP revolves around race. That's a massive over simplification. And the GOP of today is very much NOT the GOP of a quarter century ago. If Powell had run in 1996, he would have easily won the nomination. As much as some segments of the electorate may not wanted to vote for a black man, they hated Clinton more than they hated Powell's race. Plus, Powell is a genuine war hero. That alone would be enough for even the deep South to hold their nose, ignore his race, and vote for him.
 
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Except Colin Powell wouldn't be willing to do it. And as a black man in a GOP primary, he wouldn't be given a blank cheque to arbitrarily change his positions day to day.

People in this thread seem to want to handwaive away the real issue here as part of some fantasy of creating a different GOP.

You need to create a POD where there is a drastically different GOP or a drastically different Colin Powell or else his candidacy is a non-starter. OTL Colin Powell is going to be a 3rd place at best finisher in Iowa, and then get hammered by a bunch of racist innuendo that will sink him in South Carolina and beyond. For all of you wanting to point to Trump in some bizarre fashion as if that example would help Powell, the GOP base is not going to vote in a black man for the exact reasons Trump won.
I disagree. African-Americans are a minority in the GOP, but they are there. Yes, on abortion and affirmative action Powell lines up better with he Democrats, but as the saying goes, Democrats fall in love while Republicans fall in line.
 
I could see Powell being up there with some of the better ones (and I lean left). I don't know how much ball he has to play with the base of the party, especially since they would still control congress till at least 06 minus something crazy and unforseen, but I wouldn't expect anything too far past a social moderate and a fiscal conservative. The biggest change would come with 9/11. Expect Afghanistan to be a much smaller affair. Probably a special ops mission to caputure or kill bin laden and his underlings but not wholesale occupation, and Iraq (with Powell's previous experiences in the region and reluctance to chase Saddam once, probably butterflies Iraqi freedom away). The biggest question.... Does the housing bubble still collapse in 06 and the market in 08? And that answer is yes and yes again but not quite as bad without the massive amount of debt from two wars and what I would assume would be a more stable petrol dollar without massive military operations in the region. Odds are, outside of the targeted strike against bin laden, the 2000s would be known for the Chinese rise on the world stage and our efforts to curb it.
 
I could see Powell being up there with some of the better ones (and I lean left). I don't know how much ball he has to play with the base of the party, especially since they would still control congress till at least 06 minus something crazy and unforseen, but I wouldn't expect anything too far past a social moderate and a fiscal conservative. The biggest change would come with 9/11. Expect Afghanistan to be a much smaller affair. Probably a special ops mission to caputure or kill bin laden and his underlings but not wholesale occupation, and Iraq (with Powell's previous experiences in the region and reluctance to chase Saddam once, probably butterflies Iraqi freedom away). The biggest question.... Does the housing bubble still collapse in 06 and the market in 08? And that answer is yes and yes again but not quite as bad without the massive amount of debt from two wars and what I would assume would be a more stable petrol dollar without massive military operations in the region. Odds are, outside of the targeted strike against bin laden, the 2000s would be known for the Chinese rise on the world stage and our efforts to curb it.
Pretty sure that butterflying Iraqi Freedom won’t result in less US military involvement. Saddam is going to either get Gaddafied or get a Syrian Civil War analogue. Saddam is the most optimal target for the Arab Spring, Iraq may even be worse than Syria, both Iran and Saudi Arabia are going to pump in arms and funds or get directly involved. It’s more religiously and ethically divided than Syria or Libya, and much more of a threat to vested US interests in the region. In fact, ITTL the President after Powell might get blamed for NOT intervening.
 
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