why do you think he is being so coy on not endorsing someone yet? i'd be pretty surprised if he doesnt vote repub...would be awesome if he supported obama though

8/14/2008 5:41:00 PM

the Order of Ancient and Free Masons have some serious dirt on Colin Powell, that's why he stays quiet.

and if he tries to go public about the blackmail, the Illuminati will cause him to "disappear"

8/14/2008 6:07:29 PM

In that case, couldn't they just cause him to "disappear" without the whole blackmail thing if he didn't stay quiet? Seems like an awful lot of extra effort. I like to think world-controlling conspiracies would be more efficient.

8/14/2008 6:09:50 PM

no way. the more complex and confusing, the better. that way they always stay one step ahead of you.

8/14/2008 6:10:58 PM

Touché

8/14/2008 6:53:14 PM

If Powell endorses Obama, it will be a big deal for a number of reasons.

8/14/2008 6:57:18 PM

of course he will endorse obama.

8/14/2008 7:22:46 PM

i hope he will endorse Obama, but i fear that it will just be viewed as a purely racial decision. Which is too bad, considering Bush & Co. completely threw him under the bus and he has no reason to be loyal to McCain or other conservatives anymore.

8/14/2008 7:34:49 PM

Excepting the possibility that maybe he agrees (I'll grant, nominally in Powell's case) with conservative viewpoints more than liberal ones.

8/14/2008 7:53:36 PM

Quote :

"considering Bush & Co. completely threw him under the bus and he has no reason "

I guess you forget him being thrown under the bus for YEARS by dems and blacks.

Anyway, Powell is well respected among republicans and , I would assume, independents. It would be a blow to the repubs if he did do it. Would it make a difference in his numbers? Maybe, but most people who respected him before the announcement probably wouldnt be voting for obama in the first place. If he did endorse Obama it will just be ammo for the left to use as validation they arent nuts. "see, YOUR colin powell switched sides for the messiah."

Just how i see it unfolding.( if it were to happen)

8/14/2008 7:56:41 PM

i bet obama is hoping and praying he endorses him

8/14/2008 8:00:38 PM

Quote :

"I guess you forget him being thrown under the bus for YEARS by dems and blacks."

umm, he was a republican...... how does a democrat throw a republican under the bus?
Powell was a loyal conservative and republican, and Bush completely fucked him. Before Obama, and before the war, Powell had a great shot at being the first black president, and he could have gotten lots of support from moderates and democrats

8/14/2008 8:05:23 PM

I was hoping he was gonna run in 2000, but alas

8/14/2008 8:52:00 PM

ttt

10/13/2008 11:53:57 PM

Perhaps because he still views himself as somewhat a Republican (or at least that dying breed of Republican represented by his contemporaries like Baker, Bush Sr., and Scowcroft), and so while he may be pleased to see an African American on the verge of victory, he can't bring himself to throwing his weight behind him for ideological reasons. Combine this with a dislike for the direction that the Party is currently heading in with McCain and Palin, and Mr. Powell simply decides to sit this one out.

10/14/2008 12:28:58 AM

what happened to goldwater republicans?

10/14/2008 12:32:14 AM

I miss those guys.

10/14/2008 1:00:30 AM

David Brooks has a theory:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10brooks.html

Quote :

"The Class War Before Palin Modern conservatism began as a movement of dissident intellectuals. Richard Weaver wrote a book called, “Ideas Have Consequences.” Russell Kirk placed Edmund Burke in an American context. William F. Buckley famously said he’d rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. But he didn’t believe those were the only two options. His entire life was a celebration of urbane values, sophistication and the rigorous and constant application of intellect. Driven by a need to engage elite opinion, conservatives tried to build an intellectual counterestablishment with think tanks and magazines. They disdained the ideas of the liberal professoriate, but they did not disdain the idea of a cultivated mind. Ronald Reagan was no intellectual, but he had an earnest faith in ideas and he spent decades working through them. He was rooted in the Midwest, but he also loved Hollywood. And for a time, it seemed the Republican Party would be a broad coalition — small-town values with coastal reach. In 1976, in a close election, Gerald Ford won the entire West Coast along with northeastern states like New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont and Maine. In 1984, Reagan won every state but Minnesota. But over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Michael Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads. Over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts. What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole. The liberals had coastal condescension, so the conservatives developed their own anti-elitism, with mirror-image categories and mirror-image resentments, but with the same corrosive effect. Republicans developed their own leadership style. If Democratic leaders prized deliberation and self-examination, then Republicans would govern from the gut. George W. Bush restrained some of the populist excesses of his party — the anti-immigration fervor, the isolationism — but stylistically he fit right in. As Fred Barnes wrote in his book, “Rebel-in-Chief,” Bush “reflects the political views and cultural tastes of the vast majority of Americans who don’t live along the East or West Coast. He’s not a sophisticate and doesn’t spend his discretionary time with sophisticates. As First Lady Laura Bush once said, she and the president didn’t come to Washington to make new friends. And they haven’t.” The political effects of this trend have been obvious. Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone. The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community. Conservatives are as rare in elite universities and the mainstream media as they were 30 years ago. The smartest young Americans are now educated in an overwhelmingly liberal environment. This year could have changed things. The G.O.P. had three urbane presidential candidates. But the class-warfare clichés took control. Rudy Giuliani disdained cosmopolitans at the Republican convention. Mitt Romney gave a speech attacking “eastern elites.” (Mitt Romney!) John McCain picked Sarah Palin. Palin is smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable. Her convention and debate performances were impressive. But no American politician plays the class-warfare card as constantly as Palin. Nobody so relentlessly divides the world between the “normal Joe Sixpack American” and the coastal elite. She is another step in the Republican change of personality. Once conservatives admired Churchill and Lincoln above all — men from wildly different backgrounds who prepared for leadership through constant reading, historical understanding and sophisticated thinking. Now those attributes bow down before the common touch. And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission — because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away."

[Edited on October 14, 2008 at 1:49 PM. Reason : Misformed tag]

10/14/2008 1:49:21 PM

Quote :

"Colin Powell, former U.S. secretary of state, says he will vote for Barack Obama for president."

http://cnn.com

10/19/2008 9:26:32 AM

Well I can see Powell's side of thing but I think this is political suicide for him. The Republicans will cast him aside and I really don't see the Democrats embracing him. Its a shame Bush hung him out to dry after disagreeing with him on Iraq. I see this as his way of getting back at Republicans.

10/19/2008 10:16:07 AM

Quote :

"I see this as his way of getting back at Republicans."

Which is what validates your claim about political suicide. True or not, it LOOKS as if he's throwing out whatever philosophical beliefs he held that made him a Republican, just to satisfy his personal pride.

10/19/2008 10:40:22 AM

I thought it was pretty evident that he didn't have much left in the way of political aspirations. If he did he could have run for GOP nominee this year and probably won it handily. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up Sec. of State in an Obama administration, but I wouldn't be surprised if he turned down such an offer either.

10/19/2008 10:50:11 AM

It will be interesting to see how the Obama team uses Powell.

On one hand, Powell is handing a stab-in-the-back of Bush to Obama for exploitation. On the other, how does Obama praise the man who helped talk the country into the war Obama so railed against?

If they cut Powell slack saying he was given faulty intelligence- then why wasn't Bush cut any slack? "Bush Lied, People Died!" was the war cry of liberals. Well if Bush lied, then Powell lied.

10/19/2008 11:01:46 AM

Powell did lie--he's admitted to doing so.

10/19/2008 11:08:09 AM

Just gonna throw this out there: Fuck Colin Powell. Nice to see him try and atone for his mistakes but there is nothing he can do, in my eyes, to absolve himself of the role he played in leading us into Iraq.

10/19/2008 11:24:55 AM

Quote :

"Well I can see Powell's side of thing but I think this is political suicide for him."

Maybe it's just me but it doesn't seem like he cares much for politics these days.

10/19/2008 11:30:48 AM

<----waiting for the republican attack machine to let loose on powell

10/19/2008 11:36:56 AM

He is the only person I've actually heard say "and even if Obama were a muslim, who cares??" and I wish more people felt this way, we will continue to be a divided nation as long as people are still completely ignorant of the Islamic faith and for that reason remain scared of it and the people(who aren't radical fundies) practicing it.

10/19/2008 11:52:18 AM

hells yes gg colin

if that doesn't close the door i don't know what would

10/19/2008 12:26:16 PM

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/powell-obama-en.html

His video explaining belief is surprising clear, and he touches on all aspects of this race very clearly and succinctly.

This could easily lock this up for Obama.

10/19/2008 12:30:38 PM

it's ALREADY Locked up for obama.

http://www.electoral-vote.com

10/19/2008 2:07:59 PM

By "locked up" i mean there's practically no chance of it swinging back to McCain.

Prior to this, I could have seen things swinging to McCain in the normal course of things. I still can if Obama screws up, or something I can't predict happens to give the election to McCain.

However, people may get complacent, and just not vote, blowing maybe 1 too many of the swing states.

10/19/2008 2:12:50 PM

Quote :

"it's ALREADY Locked up for obama."

this statement is fucking stupid. obama will likely be elected as our next president, but to say he has it "locked up" is foolish.

10/19/2008 2:24:32 PM

http://www.1800-sports.com/presidential-betting-odds.shtml

Quote :

"LooseLines Sportsbook posts the best odds on Senator John McCain with +600 odds (a $100 wager pays out $600)"

One to six odds are pretty good. Obama will very likely be our next president.

10/19/2008 2:36:42 PM

it's like seeing nc state basketball up on duke by 14 with 2 minutes to go

10/19/2008 2:36:51 PM

Actually, I think basketball would be the most appropriate sports analogy to polls. Consider the number of points, the quick changes in the game...

10/19/2008 2:38:48 PM

I for one welcome our new communist overlords

10/19/2008 3:25:55 PM

10/19/2008 3:39:17 PM

Quote :

"the Order of Ancient and Free Masons have some serious dirt on Colin Powell, that's why he stays quiet."

10/19/2008 3:53:05 PM

message_topic.aspx?topic=539332&page=38#12090413

10/19/2008 3:59:22 PM

nice job on finding that pic before me

10/19/2008 4:09:29 PM

Quote :

"I for one welcome our new communist overlords"

10/19/2008 4:12:50 PM

And here's a predictably disgusting statement from Limbaugh:

Quote :

""Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race," Limbaugh wrote. "OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."

- http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/limbaugh-implie.html

He must not have listened to a word Powell says explaining himself. This type of delusion though seems common among some of the right these days, where they paint their own reality in order to attack it.

10/19/2008 4:27:48 PM

I can't see Powell having much, if any, influence on the outcome of this election. Even if McCain were ahead in the polls, I don't see it mattering. With Obama with a decent lead, I can't see it changing anything at all. Powell lost a ton of credibility in my eyes a long time ago, and I don't think I am unique in that regard.

10/19/2008 4:40:11 PM

^did you watch the interview?

it was a pretty powerful endorsement. it's true that the endorsement won't mean much to someone who just sees the headline, but if you're someone who is on the fence and actually watch the segment, it could definitely have a big impact

10/19/2008 4:47:10 PM

Quote :

"it's like seeing nc state basketball up on duke by 14 with 2 minutes to go"

more like duke being down by 10 playing wake forest with like 55 seconds to go

10/19/2008 5:05:46 PM

Quote :

"it was a pretty powerful endorsement. it's true that the endorsement won't mean much to someone who just sees the headline, but if you're someone who is on the fence and actually watch the segment, it could definitely have a big impact"

Okay, for one, if you base your vote on who someone endorses you are a fool, hell this is the guy who "lied" to the UN right?? Oh wait, it's different now that he is on the other side lolz. Two, the vast majority of voters will never watch his speech.

10/19/2008 5:36:31 PM

lol well the right done thrown him under the bus once...not surprised they are doing it again

10/19/2008 5:44:37 PM

Quote :

"I don't see it mattering."

think what you want, but this matters...alot. powell commands a shit-load of respect, on both sides of the isle. not like it matters, but this seals the deal for obama, period. and i can only hope that colin accepts the position of sec of sate which he will undoubtedly be offered.

Quote :

"hell this is the guy who "lied" to the UN right"

= partisan bickery. seriously. accept the reality that obama is our next president. accept it, and move on.

10/19/2008 5:46:13 PM

Quote :

"Okay, for one, if you base your vote on who someone endorses you are a fool, hell this is the guy who "lied" to the UN right?? Oh wait, it's different now that he is on the other side lolz. Two, the vast majority of voters will never watch his speech. "

haha, it's irrelevant what the "sides" think of him.

It's the middle, the swing-voters that matter, and I see no reason why they would either trust or distrust Powell.

And the problem with Powell is not that he lied, he's practically admitted this and he says he was misled, which has been corroborated by other defectors from the Bush admin. The problem people have with him is that he surely knew early on that Bush and Co. were intentionally misleading people and did nothing about it. Was this the good soldier in him, or is he just a coward?

In any case, Powell's reasoning for why he chose Obama is very clear and logical, and the large amount of people that still do respect him will take his position in consideration.

[Edited on October 19, 2008 at 5:50 PM. Reason : ]

10/19/2008 5:48:22 PM