Potential Candidate
Powell's experience in military matters made him a very popular figure with both American political parties. Many Democrats admired his moderate stance on military matters, while many Republicans saw him as a great asset associated with the successes of past Republican administrations. Put forth as a potential Democratic Vice Presidential nominee in the 1992 U.S. presidential election or even potentially replacing Vice President Dan Quayle as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Powell eventually declared himself a Republican and began to campaign for Republican candidates in 1995. He was touted as a possible opponent of Bill Clinton in the 1996 U.S. presidential election, possibly capitalizing on a split conservative vote in Iowa and even leading New Hampshire polls for the GOP nomination, but Powell declined, citing a lack of passion for politics. Powell defeated Clinton 50-38 in a hypothetical match-up proposed to voters in the exit polls conducted on Election Day. Despite not standing in the race, Powell won the New Hampshire Vice-Presidential primary on write-in votes.
In 1997 Powell founded America's Promise with the objective of helping children from all socioeconomic sectors.
In the 2000 U.S. presidential election Powell campaigned for Senator John McCain and later Texas Governor George W. Bush after the latter secured the Republican nomination. Bush eventually won, and Powell was appointed Secretary of State.
Read more about this topic: Colin Powell
Famous quotes containing the words potential and/or candidate:
“Most days I feel like an acrobat high above a crowd out of which my own parents, my in-laws, potential employers, phantoms of “other women who do it” and a thousand faceless eyes stare up.”
—Anonymous Mother. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)
“I have the greatest aversion to being a candidate on a ticket with a man whose record as an upright public man is to be in question—to be defended from the beginning to the end.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)