Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 21, 1994 TAG: 9409230064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Hearst Newspapers
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
``It gives us another feather in our cap,'' said W. Ronald Evans, spokesman for the 3-month-old exploratory committee to draft Powell. ``It gives us huge exposure we did not anticipate. It's clear that Powell brings the persona that this country needs.''
The draft campaign is led by Arthur Fletcher, a former chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and a domestic affairs adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and Maurice Dawkins, a Republican candidate for Senate in Virginia in 1988. The movement has coordinators in 21 states, including California, Evans said.
``Colin Powell is what you call an impact player,'' says Fletcher. ``I want him to have the biggest impact on this country he can, and now we are getting the machinery in place to do it.''
The movement hopes to elicit support from some of the same independently minded voters who gave Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire, 19 percent of the popular vote in 1992.
Powell joined former President Jimmy Carter and Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., for a weekend of frenzied diplomacy in Haiti, where they talked Haitian strongman Raoul Cedras into surrendering power.
Ironically, leaders of the draft-Powell movement aren't sure whether Powell, 57, is a Democrat, a Republican or an independent.
Back in 1964, Powell attached a bumper sticker reading ``All the way with L.B.J.'' to his car, but he has carefully masked his party leanings ever since.
Powell, who resides in suburban McLean, Va., did not vote in Virginia's most recent statewide primary. Nor do his political contributions give him away. He made equal $1,000 campaign contributions to a Republican and a Democrat running for the Senate from Virginia as independents, former Democratic Gov. Douglas Wilder and Republican Marshall Coleman.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB