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Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama

Posted by JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor in Politics.
Oct 19th, 2008 | Comments

As had been widely anticipated, Colin Powell came on Meet the Press this morning (Washington Monthly has the video at the link) and endorsed Barack Obama for President. His reasons? In short, he felt that Obama demonstrated more leadership and thoughtful, objective analysis on the current economic crisis. He also noted the need for open discussion with with rest of the world and feels that Obama is the person to lead that conversation. We’ll have more here later today as additional opinions roll in.

Was this a case of “one black man endorsing another?” Powell says that if that were the case, he could have made this endorsement months ago. Don’t they disagree on the Iraq War? They do, but he’s looking to the future and not the past. Will Powell be campaigning for Obama? He will not. He’s just letting everyone know that he’s going to vote for the man.

Will this change minds in the middle? Time will tell.

UPDATE: Added link to the video of Powell’s endorsement at Washington Monthly.

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kritt11

Jazz-

Did you see over at Fox there was speculation that Powell only endorsed Obama because he was miffed that McCain did not ask him to run as his VP !!!
When the truth hurts, invent a fairy tale!
( McCain should have picked Powell, imo- it would have been 1000 x better than picking Palin who is not even on the same page with him on policy, and it would have shown that the GOP had a serious minority candidate on the ticket)

mlhradio

Reading the reactions on the various partisan blogs is quite interesting. Those on the far left are dismissing Powell as a traitor, someone they lost respect with years ago -- I knew there were some extremists that have carried a years-long grudge with Powell, but I was surprised at the depth and veracity of the hatred.

Meanwhile, on those on the far right are equally as dismissive of the endorsement, saying it's nothing but a racial thing, or that Powell was never a true conservative in the first place, or that he's just one tiny voice among thousands.

But the opinions of either of these groups of people is totally meaningless. The partisans view *everything* through a partisan lens, it's not like the Powell endorsement is going to change the hardliners' minds one way or the other.

How this *really* matters is how the Powell endorsement plays with that thin sliver in the middle, who don't have their minds filled with hardened preconceptions.

So, how will the Powell endorsement play with them? Only time will tell...I suspect it may help Obama, although perhaps only to a minute degree. But more importantly, someone on one of the cable news networks noted that this "major" news story will drive the media cycle for at least a day, perhaps two days. And with precious few days left before the election, that can only be bad news for McCain.

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