blacksnextdoor

Listening to Colin Powell speak Wednesday afternoon at a business event at Radio City Music Hall, couldn’t help but find him a refreshing break from Obama, who in undergoing the slow and endless torture of this brutal presidential campaign has begun to look sadly traumatized. Of course, if Obama weren’t running, he would have had the same luster.Colin Powell, like Al Gore, only keep their sheen by staying out of the fray.

Still, it seems that a point Colin made about a leader not having the capacity to effectively lead if he’s too different from the people he’s leading — and I’m not quoting, just trying to share a remark he made at one point as best as I’m able — explains how a candidate as impressive as Barack could lose this race.

Obama’s an intellectual. Intellectuals are perceived as possessing an almost magical intelligence eerily beyond that of others. That McCain is more akin to a robot than a leader with a forward looking vision, should translate into few, if any votes. However, this is going to be a close contest, which speaks to a national romance with those who just follow orders.

We’re a nation of workaholics. As I’m reminded ad nauseum by European friends: in the U.S. we live to work while they work to live. When people refer to a ‘post-American’ world, they refer to an America that’s ideologically static or as per an article I recently read at http://www.newser.com, our candidates should be talking innovation, not abortion. 

The voters who back ‘grit your teeth and bear it McCain’ and his hockey mom sidekick Palin, are people who have no imagination, are holding the rest of us hostage in a reality best symbolized by the decidedly un-diverse, flag ‘n gun waving Republican convention in Minneapolis a few weeks ago.  Forget about McCain as maverick. He’s the operative of a backwards political agenda. To say that even though he is, he gives his party hell, is pure nonsense.

Anyway, at this event last week, Colin Powell had us all in the palm of his hand with his earthy charm and sensitive observations on everything from Ahmadinejad to Guitar Hero. Even the feline way he filled his chair was so sexy, so professorial — not attributes I have ever seen in a Republican before. He came across kind of like well, yes Barack, mixed in with a little John.

Is Colin Powell the savior we really need to create a unified — not irreconcilably split U.S.? This brave war hero with the free asociative flow of a democrat, right and left all rolled into one?

Funny that if this great country’s going to step boldly into its future and not keep trying to regurgitate its past, the two most probable guys to get us there at either end of the political spectrum are black men. Anybody notice that? 

Let me know!