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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.
In recent years, Adelman and his friends Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz fell out over his criticisms of the botching of the Iraq War. Still, he remains a bona-fide hawk (“not really a neo-con but a con-con”) who has never supported a Democrat for President in his life. Two weeks from now that’s going to change: Ken Adelman intends to vote for Barack Obama. He can hardly believe it himself.
Ken Adelman is a bonafide Conservative. If he is able to vote for Obama, then the exodus is just beginning…
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4 Responses to “UPDATED – P.P.E. (Powell’s Political Effect) – Let My Moderate Republicans Go”
There is no need to be childish about the GOP-voter “crossover” for Obama this year. The GOP is dysfunctional, not deadly, toxic, or the equivalent. Not all GOP-leaning voters are so silly they, for example, adore Bloomberg (the “moderate” idol of the Silly Set) and support his current debased effort to subvert election laws.
As to Powell and what I called the Powell Effect, it's a great PR and electoral boost for Obama. Plenty of us wanted Powell to be our President in the 1990s and in earlier years in this decade, and we view what he has to say very, very highly.
DLS
“Plenty of us wanted Powell to be our President in the 1990s and in earlier years in this decade, and we view what he has to say very, very highly.”
So does that mean you're planning to vote for Obama?:-)
And I do think the GOP has become toxic— they have worked to divide us against ourselves at a time when unity is important. Plus they incite the ugly emotions inside voters during campaigns. Its not simply disfunction that is causing Powell to cross over- and it certainly isn't race. Its because the GOP has allowed the dominance of the extreme right wing over the moderates and centrists. These extremists are not happy with compromise; they want to crush their opponents- both domestically and internationally. Powell is the first prominent moderate to come forward and say he's had enough (I'm not counting Bloomberg and Hagel here-because they have not endorsed Obama)
[...] Campbell at The Moderate Voice seems to think that Obama, and Powell, should welcome the attacks: Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama is one of the big tea leaves of this election cycle. [...]
Pat Buchanan, George Will, and Rush Limbaugh are only voting for McCain because they're white.