TWO MONTHS AGO, COLIN POWELL told Barbara Walters he was, at the moment, neither Democrat nor Republican. He had been unable “to find a perfect fit in either of the two existing parties,” and was intrigued by the “idea of running for president as an independent, “if I were to consider a candidacy at all.” He spoke even more favorably of the possible formation of a third party.
Last week, as he forswore a presidential candidacy in 1996, Colin Powell declared hlmself a Republican.
He was, he said, “very impressed with what the Republican party is trying to do right now — trying to put the nation on a better fiscal balance; trying to bring government under contract and make government smaller; trying to put more “money back into the pocket of individual taxpayers.” Powell acknowledged he disagrees with some aspects of the Republican agenda, and would act and work as a Republican in the months ahead to broaden the party’s appeal “to the greatest number of Americans possible.”
And so the most respected Public figure in America joins the Republican party.
That continues to worry some conservatives, who fear his influence on the GOP. They consider centrist Powellism a greater danger to the conservative cause than radical Buchananism. Voters and Republicans clearly disagree: The extent of Republican support for a prospective Powell candidacy over the last couple of months suggests that he is far closer to the Republican mainstream than Pat Buchanan.
Indeed, we can look forward to Colin Powell speaking in prime time at the Republican convention in San Diego in August 1996. The contrast with the Republican convention in 1992 is so obvious it barely requires mention.
The most memorable speech in Houston was Buchanan’s. Powell’s appearance would surely be as galvanizing, though its result would be a happier one. And his visible support for a conservative Republican nominee will strengthen the Republican ticket in November.
Whom will he be supporting? Presumably Bob Dole, or Phil Gramm, or Lamar Alexander. But at a press conference one hour after Powell’s, Newt Gingrich raised the possibility that one more hat may come flying into the ring — his own.
The media, armed with new poll data that show Gingrich getting trounced by Clinton, aren’t taking the speaker very seriously as a presidential candidate. They think he’s too divisive a figure, and, according to the conventional wisdom, the GOP primary electorate is risk-averse and always anoints the established front-runner.
Oh? Current Republican primary voters demonstrated, at least in their responses to pollsters, a willingness to gamble on a Powell candidacy — despite their uncertainty about and disagreement with some of his views. They might well be willing to take a different sort of gamble on Gingrich. They might support him him because he personifies the newly victorious Republican agenda — despite their uncertainty about his prospects in a race against the president
In any case, as Gingrich himself pointed out in his post-Powell press conference, “the fact is if you look at Republican primary voters my negatives aren’t very high.” Gingrich went on to note that the press had judged the Ronald Reagan of 1979 “a very polarizing figure, impossible to elect. It turned out he did okay after a while.” (It’s interesting that Gingrich seems to have reflected quite a bit on Reagan’s ascent to the presidency.)
We’ll know more within a week. The presidential campaign kicks into high gear this weekend in Florida, with a nationally televised debate and the Presidency III straw poll. If Bob Dole looks weak there, and at the same time neither Alexander nor Gramm seems to be catching on, then Gingrich may see both an opening and an obligation to run.
He suggested as much last week when he said he wanted “to sit down and look at where the situation is, how it evolves, what happens in Florida with the Presidency III, and what the mood is like in late November.”
Gingrich’s own mood must have been buoyed by Colin Powell’s expression of admiration for the Republican party’s “ideas and energy.” After all, who’s the architect of those ideas and the generator of that energy?
Would it really be so strange if the vacuum created by Powell’s failure to run were ultimately filled by Newt Gingrich?
by William Kristol
