Colin Powell told “CBS This Morning” this morning why he is throwing his support behind President Barack Obama for a second term and not endorsing fellow Republican Mitt Romney on November 6.
Using Monday’s final presidential debate as his touchstone, Powell grilled Romney for straying too far from his original foreign policy points as well as his economic plan.
I’m not comfortable with what Governor Romney is proposing for his economic plan. I have concerns about his views on foreign policy. The Governor, who was speaking on Monday night at the debate, was saying things that were quite different from what he said earlier. So I’m not quite sure which Governor Romney we would be getting with respect to foreign policy.
When probed to explain exactly what about Romney’s foreign policy that he found unsettling, Powell acknowledged the fact that Romney has and continues to flip flop on key issues:
One day he has a certain strong view about staying in Afghanistan, but then on Monday night he agrees with the withdrawal. Same thing in Iraq. On almost every issue that was discussed on Monday night, Governor Romney agreed with the President with some nuances.
But this is quite a different set of foreign policy views than he had earlier in the campaign. And my concern, which I’ve expressed previously in a public way, is that sometimes I don’t sense that he has thought through these issues as thoroughly as he should have, and he gets advice from his campaign staff that he then has to adjust to modify as he goes along.
After pointing out Governor Romney’s many flaws, the former Secretary of State made his case for why he is rolling with the President for the second time. Powell explained that while times are difficult, he does believe the country is going in the right direction and even went as far as saying that he was against Romney’s plan to do away with Obamacare.
I think we ought to keep on the track that we are on. I voted for him in 2008 and I plan to stick with him in 2012.
I’m more comfortable with President Obama and his administration when it comes to issues like what are we going to do about climate, what are we going to do about immigration? What are we going to do about education? Lots of things like that.
I do not want to see the new Obamacare plan thrown off the table. It has issues, you have to fix some things in that plan. But what I see when I look at that plan is 30 million of our fellow citizens will now be covered by insurance. And I think that’s good. We’re one of the few nations in the world, with our size, population and wealth, that does not have universal health care.
Watch Colin Powell’s endorsement here:
