UPDATED – P.P.E. (Powell’s Political Effect) – Let My Moderate Republicans Go

Let the Moderate Republican Exodus Begin.

Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama is one of the big tea leaves of this election cycle. There are a lot of disaffected moderates in the Republican Party that have waited for an important figure to be a Maverick and come out publicly to endorse Obama. This morning, the inevitable smear machine is on overdrive with Pat Buchanan and George Will stating the Powell is endorsing Obama because of race. The only thing that Buchanan and company are doing are making Powell’s point for him…

The Republican Party of the last eight years has been under the control of people who are so out of touch with America…it is they that should be running gulags in Siberia.

The Obama campaign, on their R.F.O. website, has several Republican ex-members of Congress as endorsers but none of them have the national or political stature of Colin Powell. My gut feeling is that there will be a significant number of moderate Republicans who will endorse Obama over the next week or so.

Using military terminology for a second, Powell’s P.P.E. will provide air cover for rank and file moderates to publicly show their support for Obama while showing their disgust for the “slash and burn” political tactics that is being practiced by the McCain campaign.

UPDATED (8:20 p.m.)
First Colin Powell, Now…

Ken Adelman is a lifelong conservative Republican. Campaigned for Goldwater, was hired by Rumsfeld at the Office of Economic Opportunity under Nixon, was assistant to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld under Ford, served as Reagan’s director of arms control, and joined the Defense Policy Board for Rumsfeld’s second go-round at the Pentagon, in 2001. Adelman’s friendship with Rumsfeld, Cheney, and their wives goes back to the sixties, and he introduced Cheney to Paul Wolfowitz at a Washington brunch the day Reagan was sworn in.

Ken Adelman is a bonafide Conservative. If he is able to vote for Obama, then the exodus is just beginning…