Powell ready to jump on Obama bandwagon?

By Tim Shipman in Washington, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:12am BST 17/06/2007



One has held high office in both the United States armed forces and President George W Bush's Republican administration. The other, a Democrat, is seeking to become America's first black president.

Now Washington is buzzing with talk that Barack Obama, the candidate for the White House, and Colin Powell, the former general and secretary of state, may join forces.


New alliance: Colin Powell, left, has served three Republican presidents, but he is now willing to throw his lot in with Democrat Barack Obama

Last week, Mr Powell revealed that he has been advising the senator from Illinois on foreign policy - provoking a flurry of speculation about the plans and ambitions of both men.

Mr Powell, 70, who left office in January 2005 under a cloud left by the war in Iraq, has served three Republican presidents, but made clear that he is considering backing a Democrat to succeed his former boss, George W Bush.

He disclosed that he has twice met Sen Obama, at the request of the White House hopeful. "I make myself available to talk about foreign policy matters and military matters with whoever wishes to chat with me," Mr Powell said. "I'm going to support the best person that I can find who will lead this country."

He ruled out any speculation that he may seek the vice-presidency. But asked if he would accept another senior post, he said: "I would not rule it out. I am not at all interested in political life if you mean elected political life. But I always keep my eyes open and my ears open to requests for service."

Mr Powell was the first black secretary of state, under the current President Bush. Before that, he served Mr Bush's father as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was national security adviser to president Ronald Reagan.

In 1995, Mr Powell was wooed by senior Democrats as well as Republicans who wanted him to run against Bill Clinton for the presidency in 1996. He eventually ruled it out because his wife did not wish him to become a target for racist assassins. Sen Obama, 45, has already received unspecified death threats.

Otherwise, they are not obvious partners. Sen Obama, alone among the Democrat frontrunners, opposed the Iraq war from the start - a war that Mr Powell's now discredited testimony before the United Nations on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programmes is seen to have helped bring about.

A former adviser to President Bill Clinton - whose wife, Hillary, is the other leading Democratic candidate - welcomed Sen Obama's links with Mr Powell as a sign that he wants to heal the divisions in American society.

Philip Crowley, the director of homeland security at the Centre for American Progress and a former White House special assistant, said: "It's refreshing that we have a candidate that wants to craft a centrist policy that will reach out across party lines."

He added: "Mr Powell is a unique individual. He was chairman of the joint chiefs, he's been national security adviser and the secretary of state, so he's uniquely positioned to look at foreign policy from multiple points of view."

Polls show that while Sen Clinton has most support from registered Democrat voters, Sen Obama's appeal is greater than hers among independents, who are expected to hold the key to the election. Opinion appears unusually volatile: a poll of likely primary voters on Friday put Sen Obama on 32 per cent, only four points behind Sen Clinton, who last month led by 13 points. Other polls, which have featured more independent voters not certain to vote, have put Sen Obama level.

In many ways, Mr Powell is closer to Sen Obama and independent voters than he is to the Republicans. He was also frustrated that his "Powell Doctrine" of military operations - that overwhelming force should be used but only with international support - which he developed after his experiences in Vietnam, was ignored in Iraq. In an interview with the television programme Meet the Press last week, he also distanced himself from President Bush, declaring that he would close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp "this afternoon".

Sen Clinton still enjoys a lead over Sen Obama among black voters - though that gap has narrowed - and both candidates have sought to woo prominent blacks. The author Maya Angelou endorsed Sen Clinton last week.

But her support is concentrated among poor blacks, many of whom are yet to be convinced that Mr Obama - who does not share the slave heritage of most black Americans - is one of their own. He does better with university educated voters, both black and white.

The blogger Too Sense, who writes on racial issues, said: "Powell's meeting with Obama is a brilliant move. Obama's association with another one-time potential black president, a black man who white America has found so non-threatening that he was held up as a model for 'the rest of us', can only increase his appeal."