Colin Powell endorses Obama.
Now it’s Colin Powell.
He makes three points:
1. We need a transformational President; Obama might be one, McCain won’t.
2. During the financial crisis, Obama behaved like a President; McCain didn’t.
3. McCain’s dirty and trivial campaign is inappropriate to the gravity of the situation.
Does the endorsement matter? Search me. It might. But like the wave of newspaper endorsements from right-leaning papers (Denver Post, Salt Lake City Tribune, Wisconsin State Journal, New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, with no paper that endorsed Kerry in 2004 endorsing McCain) it’s at worst a straw in the wind. Conservatives and Republicans driven by the ethic of responsibility rather than factional loyalty are, with more or less trepidation, casting their lot with Obama.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman