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

The Popularity of Colin Powell E realwhere he goes, Colin Powell is besieged. Bicycle messengers in spandex tights s make pass him on the streets of Washington and urge him to run for President. Waiters at restaurants advise the retired general to aim for the White House. CEOs quietly pledge specie should Powell decide to run. Political operatives of both partitionies would like to ignore Powell--but cant. I dont judge about it a lot, claims a senior White House official, on ward admitting, If Powell does run, he will be a significant player. Another 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 primary(prenominal) competitor 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 fight is instantly on its feet as his presence is reveald and he bounds dow n to the podium. He speaks for 50 minutes, without notes, victorious the crowd through the cold war, through Korea, Vietnam, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Operation Desert drive and the occupation of Haiti. Powell, 58, split ups moving tales of his upbringing in Harlem and the South Bronx, of sitting in the Hall of St. Catherine in the Kremlin, where he heard 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 carefully 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 life afterwards my book is finished. The book is out this fall, and then Ill have to make virtually choices. I tell people that Im not a professional politician. I was truly a soldier. Another wave of applause washes over him. even off after working ii years in the West Wing, in that respect 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 very govern? It is likely both parties in Congress would be heap 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 conjunction style? Friends counter that Powell could form a bipartisan government of discipline reconciliation. But he has known many Third Wo rld putsch leaders who say they have taken power to achieve field reconciliation. Powell, by his own admission, has always been a supremely cautious ready reckoner of risks and rewards. He succeeded as a political general by shrewd where the boundaries were, knowing what was possible and what was not. There is nothing in the life of Colin Powell to stir 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.