The Popularity of Colin Powell Essay -- Colin Powell Governmental Poli

The Popularity of Colin Powell Everywhere he goes, Colin Powell is besieged. Bicycle messengers in spandex tights stop him on the streets of Washington and itching him to run for President. Waiters at restaurants advise the retired general to aim for the White House. CEOs quietly pledge money should Powell decide to run. Political operatives of both parties would like to ignore Powell--but cant. I dont think about it a lot, claims a senior White House official, before admitting, If Powell does run, he will be a significant player. An opposite in the White House is more fatalistic If he runs, were dead. Says William Lacy, Bob Doles top strategist If he jumped in the race today, he would be the principal rivalry for us. Everywhere he goes, Colin Powell is applauded. In the hall in San Diego where the Republican Party will nominate its presidential candidate about a year from now, the crew is instantly on its feet as his presence is announced and he bounds down to the podium. He spea ks for 50 minutes, without notes, taking the crowd with the cold war, through Korea, Vietnam, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Operation Desert Storm and the occupation of Haiti. Powell, 58, tells moving tales of his upbringing in Harlem and the South Bronx, of sitting in the Hall of St. Catherine in the Kremlin, where he hear Gorbachev declare that the cold war was over. And when Powell has delivered his set speech, the inevitable question rises from the floor When are you going to announce that youre running for President? The rapt audience conservatively weighs the well-rehearsed answer, word by word. Thank you very, very much. And Im very, very flattered. Im honored and humbled. Its a question I receive regularly, and I dont know what Im going to do with my bread and butter after my book is finished. The book is out this fall, and then Ill have to make some choices. I tell people that Im not a professional politician. I was truly a soldier. Another wave of applause washes over hi m. Even after working two years in the West Wing, there isnt a single one of my White House friends from those days who could tell you today whether they think Im a Republican or a Democrat. That was part of the code I lived with. Now Im no longer protected by my uniform. As I go around the country, Im trying to develop a political philosophy, just to be a good citizen, not n... ...black votes taking away the most reliable core of the partys electoral support and vacuuming up votes Clinton needs if he is to win in 1996. And how could a nonparty President actually govern? It is likely both parties in Congress would be plenty angry with President Powell for having broken up their games. Would there be a proliferation of parties, turning American democracy into a version of Italys fractured, shifting coalition style? Friends counter that Powell could form a bipartisan government activity of guinea pig reconciliation. But he has known many Third World coup leaders who say they have taken power to achieve national reconciliation. Powell, by his own admission, has always been a supremely cautious calculator of risks and rewards. He succeeded as a political general by wise to(p) where the boundaries were, knowing what was possible and what was not. There is nothing in the life of Colin Powell to suggest he would be the man to toss a grenade into the entrenched positions of American politics. On the other hand, Powell has bounded up the career ladder two and three steps at a time. He is a very determined man. Meanwhile, he is thinking, calculating, weighing his choices.