THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 23, 1995 TAG: 9510230099
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Retired Gen. Colin Powell, having signed 60,001 copies of his book in five weeks, is home pondering whether to run for the presidency.
For advice he has assembled what The New York Times calls the political equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the decision, the adviser who counts most is his wife. She can best weigh what would be right for him and the nation.
The politicians, mostly Republicans, naturally want him to run. Among them are William Kristol, editor of the conservative Standard, and William Bennett, former education secretary and drug czar.
Both can help overcome resistance of some hard-right cavemen to a Powell candidacy; neither has showed blinding political acumen. Bennett, a critic of the nation's education system, made little difference in it while he headed it.
Bennett is close to talk show host Rush Limbaugh, whom he addresses, in a light vein, as ``Oh, Great One.'' Limbaugh has been wary of a Powell candidacy.
Kristol, formerly Dan Quayle's chief of staff, had the misfortune of having to take seriously his boss' aspirations to the White House.
Kenneth Duberstein, former Reagan chief of staff, is friend to Powell and Newt Gingrich. Bringing them close is like yoking Scylla and Charybdis or Leno and Letterman.
But Powell alluded gently last week to the Contract With America.
His allegiance to the GOP is understandable because two Republican presidents - Reagan, likened to a political father, and George Bush, an older brother - raised him to power. He is consulting Bush.
But Powell would not have been there for them to see had it not been for Democratic programs uplifting the underprivileged.
FDR aided his father's generation; Truman, integrating the Army, helped Colin. For Powell to brush aside Democrats as having run out of ideas was harsh. They may need mending; but Newt's Republicans are bent on discarding much of the Old Time Religion.
If Powell runs, he'll encounter spacey ideas from Gingrich. The House speaker's advocacy of orphanages for children at risk rivals some of the Soviet Union's policies in the 1930s.
Some, opposing Powell for president, wish he would run for vice president on Sen. Bob Dole's ticket. That would be easy for Powell and convenient for Dole in allaying doubts about the senator's age.
Dole looks to be the fittest of GOP candidates; but at 72, no matter how hearty one appears, one has trouble putting on one's shoes in the morning and clambering out of the depths of the modern car.
There comes a tide, Shakespeare said, and it is rising for Powell. The need for him is now. Ahead is the widening division of races. Powell can be a unifying force for races, ages, genders, classes. Failing to take the tide, he may leave himself and his country in the shallows. ILLUSTRATION: Retired Gen. Colin Powell is pondering a run for the presidency,
weighing advice from his wife and politicians.
by CNB