
Powell joined “CBS This Morning” on Thursday and with 12 days to go before the presidential election publicly endorsed President Obama for reelection for the first time.
“I voted for him in 2008 and I plan to stick with him in 2012 and I’ll be voting for he and Vice President Joe Biden next month…”
“When he took over the country was in very, very difficult straits. We were in the one of the worst recessions we had seen in recent times, close to a depression. The fiscal system was collapsing. Wall Street was in chaos, we had 800,000 jobs lost in that first month of the Obama Administration and unemployment peaked at 10 percent. So we were in real trouble. The auto industry was collapsing, the housing was started to collapse and we were in very difficult straits. And I saw over the next several years stabilization come back in the financial community, housing is now starting to come back after four years, it’s starting to pick up. Consumer confidence is rising.”
Summarizing the past four years under Obama, Powell said “Generally, we’ve come out of the dive and we’re starting to gain altitude.” He added, “The unemployment rate is too high, people are still hurting in housing but I see that we’re starting to raise up.”
Turning to foreign policy, Powell said he saw “the president got us out of one war, start to get us out of a second war and did not get us into any new wars. And finally I think that the actions he has taken with respect to protecting us from terrorism have been very very solid. And so, I think we ought to keep on the track that we are on.”
Speaking to Mitt Romney’s foreign policy views, Powell expressed his concern about Romney’s changing positions on international affairs. “The governor who was saying things at the debate on Monday night was saying things that were quite different from what he said earlier,” referring to Romney’s performance at the foreign policy debate earlier in the week. “I’m not quite sure which Gov. Romney we would be getting with respect to foreign policy,” he added…
And, despite his endorsement of a Democratic candidate in two presidential elections, Powell says he remains a Republican. “I think I’m a Republican of a more moderate mold,” he said before adding, “That’s something of a dying breed I’m sorry to say.”
The right wing controlling today’s Republican Party – from the Tea Party to Larry Kudlow who coined the acronym RINO – would say, again, that Colin Powell is a Republican In Name Only. Like members of my family who walked away from that party after 50 years of loyal service – because traditional American conservative values have been diminished and replaced by theocracy, bigotry and a monolithic commitment to corporate wealth.
The number of folks who still call themselves Republicans – and are willing to support the whole nation struggling to get out from under this Great Recession – continues to shrink. Still – it’s nice to hear positive support from one of the leading voices remaining on that side of the aisle.