Colin Powell Is Not The GOP Man

An effective selection of timing has been made by Colin Powell with the recent burst of interest in him by the national news media. The GOP has most recently lost 4 potential Presidential candidates for the 2012 election. One is in the process of surrendering her governorship to pursue a "higher calling", apparently not the White House. Two others have found that inappropriately utilized arrows of Cupid found not only the targeted hearts but also deflated their high-office trial balloons. A fourth is in the process of shipping off to China to serve the Obama Administration as an ambassador. If the Republican Party has ever had such a lack of current leadership or even promising future leadership, it has to beyond the memory of all living conservatives. Into this leadership void Colin Powell may have tryed to step.

With the exception of the year 2008, on paper there could not be a more perfectly qualified individual to be the champion that brings the GOP back into power in 2012. However, if it was possible, and it is not, for the GOP to overcome and forgive the endorsement of Barach H. Obama by Powell, the Republican Party under Powell would be far different than the conservative option that its traditional advocates wish for it. The most recently highlighted Powell statements have been a mild rebuke to President Obama that he is trying to do too much and getting nothing accomplished. A comment that Sotomajor is being too roughly treated and that she in fact "tries to follow the law". And on that same general topic, Powell has lamented that the Republican Party is not sympathetic enough with minorities. It would appear that Powell is attempting to move his professed party of choice, the party that truly advanced his national and international career, to the left.

A potential rational could be that Powell has perceived that the nation's sentiments have retreated away from the far right and are concentrated at the middle of the political spectrum or maybe even slightly, very sightly to the left of center. The radical Progressives of Obama's ilk, Powell has decided, cannot remain popular and will be a ready target for 2012 particularly if Obama's domestic economic policies and international relations policies continue to be found lacking. The secret, so Powell believes, is to have an electable center candidate to woo back the new conservatives. These new conservatives would have been the center and the moderate left of only a few years ago. However, the harsh reality is that Powell cannot be that person.

Forgiveness will not come and political astuteness cannot remove the fact that this extraordinary American is today 72 years old; will be pushing 76 on inauguration day 2013 and therefore almost 80 as his term ends. Regardless of health and vigor and mental alertness, a 75 year old candidate cannot win the Presidency in 2012.

So the questions remain. Who will be the standard bearer of the Republican Party? How liberal does this candidate have to be to have any chance of being elected in 2012? And is the Republican Party of Reagan truly an icon of the past?