Defections to Obama coming fast and furious

Colin Powell endorsing Barack Obama on Meet the Press (photo via New Mexico Independent)

Over the weekend I learned that two life-long conservatives I know quite well are going to vote for Barack Obama.

The first is a friend who, just a few days ago, explained to me how naive Democrats were about the economy and how the Bush years had been good to him and his family. He explained, quite loudly over dinner, that the Democratic Party was the party of complainers who wanted something for nothing.

Well, he just found out that his wife was laid off, and on Sunday he told me he decided to stop supporting John McCain and cast his vote for the senator from Illinois.

The second call was no less of a shock.

It came from my mother, who said she wanted to let me know that a relative of ours -– a 60-year-old white man in Kentucky who intended to vote for McCain — had changed his mind while watching Colin Powell on Meet the Press.

According to my mother, hearing Powell lay out in a rational fashion why he thought Obama would make a better president was all this relative needed.

Here, if you haven’t seen it, is Powell’s appearance:

And here’s a clip from the transcript… This is Powell speaking:

…(L)et me lead into it this way. I know both of these individuals very well now. I’ve known John for 25 years as your setup said. And I’ve gotten to know Mr. Obama quite well over the past two years.

Both of them are distinguished Americans who are patriotic, who are dedicated to the welfare of our country. Either one of them, I think, would be a good president. I have said to Mr. McCain that I admire all he has done. I have some concerns about the direction that the Party has taken in recent years. It has moved more to the right than I would like to see it, but that’s a choice the Party makes. And I’ve said to Mr. Obama, “You have to pass a test of do you have enough experience, and do you bring the judgment to the table that would give us confidence that you would be a good president.”

And I’ve watched him over the past two years, frankly, and I’ve had this conversation with him. I have especially watched over the last six of seven weeks as both of them have really taken a final exam with respect to this economic crisis that we are in and coming out of the conventions. And I must say that I’ve gotten a good measure of both.

In the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a little unsure as to deal with the economic problems that we were having and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem. And that concerned me, sensing that he didn’t have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had.

And I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin. She’s a very distinguished woman, and she’s to be admired; but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made….

On the Obama side, I watched Mr. Obama and I watched him during this seven-week period. And he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge and an approach to looking at problems like this and picking a vice president that, I think, is ready to be president on day one. And also, in not just jumping in and changing every day, but showing intellectual vigor. I think that he has a, a definitive way of doing business that would serve us well.

I also believe that on the Republican side over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower. Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He’s crossing lines — ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He’s thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values.

And I’ve also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about.

This Bill Ayers situation that’s been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign. But Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed-out terrorist. Well, then, why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that, because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted.

What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that’s inappropriate….

I’m not sure about independents on the fence, but my sense is that a lot of Republicans out there are looking for a reason to jump ship at this point. Powell, I think, may have given a lot of them the encouragement they needed on Sunday morning.