COLIN POWELL TELLS a funny but humbling story about his post-military life in My American Journey, his best-selling autobiography. While driving an old Volvo on the Washington Beltway during rush hour, he ran out of gas. A traffc officer happened along and squirted a half-pint of gas in his tank. So Powell drove away, looking for a gas station. Before he found one, he got caught in another traffc jam and ran out of gas again. “I told myself,” he writes, “Mr. Powell, becoming a civilian is going to be harder than you expected.”
The same applies to politics, especially at the presidential level. Powell has many gifts of leadership — commanding presence, no-nonsense speaking style, sterling character, striking likability — but these wouldn’t automatically make him an effective candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996. In fact, there’s a strong case that he shouldn’t run.
He’s not ready. “I’m still finding myself,” Powell told Larry King on CNN. The worst place to do this is in a presidential race. True, candidates often develop ideas and themes while campaigning in the months before the first primary. But this works for those stumping in relative obscurity, as Jimmy Carter was in 1975. Powell won’t have this luxury. From the moment he announces, the media will magnify every word he says. If he alters a position, even minutely, or changes his emphasis, even slightly, reporters will pounce.
“I do have views on most of the pressing issues out there,” Powell assured David Frost. But it’s clear he hasn’t thought through those views on domestic and economic issues. This is bound to cause trouble. He’s for affirmative action but not preferences, despite the organic connection between the two. He also says America is a “racist society,” which argues for preferences to compensate for past bias. He’s for the Republican version of Medicare reform, but only because he hasn’t seen the alternatives. He’s for cutting taxes, but maybe for raising them in some circumstances. He’s against taxpayer-funded abortions — well, for now, anyway. Powell’s positions are frequently self- cancelling. Maybe he likes them that way. But opponents and the press would have a field day poking holes in them.
Bob Dole insists Powell is welcome in the race. “We’ll go out to Iowa and talk about target prices, hog prices, corn prices,” Dole says, a semi-grin on his face. He knows Powell isn’t prepared to do what presidential candidates must: talk with specificity on issue after issue. Powell is fuzzy on most issues. He doesn’t know enough about the details of the GOP tax cut to judge it, he said on CBS This Morning. He’s for a new health care system, though he adds, “I’m not sure exactly how to do it.” Hiking the minimum wage? That one he’s “still studying.” Not to be cruel, but he sounds like Admiral James Stockdale, Ross Perot’s running mate in 1992 who confessed to being “out of ammo” on some domestic issues.
He’d be a weak Republican nominee. What Republicans need to defeat Bill C linton next year is party unity. If the GOP nominee gets a one-on-one shot at C linton, chances are he’ll win. And that goes for any Republican with a realisti c prospect of winning the nomination (Dole, Phil Gramm, Lamar Alexander) — but not Powell. If nominated, he’d provoke a breakaway third-party campaign, perhaps by Pat Buchanan, perhaps by another pro-lifer, whose effect would be to draw Republican votes and re-elect Clinton.
Powell also seems politically tone deaf in talking about issues. I assume he wants to woo GOP voters, since he’s said from the outset that he’s not a Democrat and would rather run as a Republican than as an independent. So why would he immediately declare himself pro-choice, pro-gun control, and dubious of the Christian Right, thus alienating the conservative base of the party? The only explanation is he didn’t understand how all that would be received.
He would never get along with Newt Gingrich. There are two things Gingrich hates about the presidential race (other than that he’s not running). One is that Buchanan might define conservatism. The other is that Powell might define Republicanism. By declaring himself a “Rockefeller Republican,” Powell cast himself as out of sync with the Gingrich revolution. This was a big mistake. Gingrich is not only the GOP congressional leader, he’s the soul of the party. He, more than anyone, sets the agenda. Dole has come to terms with Gingrich. Gramm and Alexander would if elected. But President Powell would be under enormous pressure from establishment Republicans and the media to thwart Gingrich’s conservative agenda. Trouble would ensue.
Powell’s supporters haven’t made the case for his candidacy. They claim he’s more conservative than he’s sounded. If so, he’s got a lot of rowing back to do, a process that will harm his reputation as a guy who stands behind what he says. Citing polls showing him as the only Republican who beats Clinton, they argue he’s a sure winner. But these are polls on Powell the general and war hero. He’ll be seen differently — and less favorably — once he announces.
Powell’s noisiest ally, Bill Bennett, is an intellectual giant among Republicans, but he comes across as a political hack reading talking points when he touts Powell. A party with Buchanan, Morry Taylor, and Arlen Specter as presidential candidates “can sure as heck make room for Colin Powell,” he said on Face the Nation. Room, however, isn’t the issue. Whether Powell should be the GOP nominee is. Bennett zinged critics who say Powell isn’t conservative enough. Powell is a hero who is respected by Americans, Bennett said. “Of course we want him in our party.” True, but that’s not an argument for making him the nominee. Sure, Powell will take some flak as a candidate, Bennett concedes. But he’s “taken unfriendly fire before, real unfriendly fire. ” Please.
He has a great fallback position. Powell is assured of one thing: a big job in the next Republican administration. My guess is he’ll be the running mate of whatever Republican wins the presidential nomination. If not that, he’s a good bet for secretary of state, a post for which he is immensely qualified. As clumsily as he talks about domestic issues, Powell discusses foreign and defense issues with considerable confidence. By staying out of the race, he can’t lose. By getting in, he might.
Resisting the temptation to run, given the polls and the pressure, may be more than Powell can do. One of his 13 rules for life, listed in My American Journey, suggests he ought to run:
“Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.” In his case, the opposite is true. Powell shouldn’t let a few favorable facts force a bad decision.
by Fred Barnes
