Powell did not want to be elected to the presidency. He would not run for the vice presidency.
Powell did not want to be elected to the presidency. He would not run for the vice presidency.
Yes Powell did not want to be involved in electoral politics. Although Eisenhower did well, the military is not good training for politics. I don't think you could get a majority of the delegates of a Republican convention to vote for a pro choice candidate. sSure Powell beat Clinton in a poll, but that was a poll of all voters not the Republican base.
Ah, but with this POD, he gets motivation, ie the dems have "stolen" the nomination from Obama.
His wife and or family and friends who may have been resistant to him running as a Republican, now may be supporting the idea.
And, it's a late entry. He avoids a lot of the brutality of the primaries by coming in after that's over.
And who knows what kind of selling job, the GOP establishment might be able to come up with if they smell blood in the water, ie a chance to weaken the dem hold on the African American vote?
It doesn't have to actually happen, just be a potential to get the Country Club Republicans to wind up the Party big wigs.
No. It was not his wife that made Powell not run; at least it wasn't the prime reason. Powell himself said in an interview some years ago, when asked why he didn't run and if it were true that it was his wife that made him not run for the presidency that no, he himself did not want to run for president. Colin Powell does not want to be president, Colin Powell was not going to run for president, nor the vice presidency.
Barack Obama had stronger support amongst young people, but Hilary Clinton had a stronger broad appeal and would be able to circumvent some of the things that most likely made the 2008 election much closer than it should have been.
This smacks to me of applying post-Secretary of State tenure thinking onto the Hillary of 2008. She wasn't the kind of figure she is now, then. She was deeply divisive back then. Polls about her electability suggested that large amounts of the electorate, beyond the GOP hardcore response, said they would never consider voting for her. When you add in Obama's ability to energise and turnout African-Americans and the youth vote - not to mention the level of campaign 'skill' she showed in the primaries - the notion that Hillary would have won bigger is very shaky.