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Clinton, Dole and millions of American voters are watching the Colin Powell space. More than half the country says it wants an independent candidate for President to break up the duopoly enjoyed by the two parties. And in a TIME/CNN poll, nearly a third of the voters say they would vote for Powell in a three-way race against Clinton and Dole, putting the retired general in a virtual dead heat with the candidates of the two major parties. Moreover, the poll shows that if Powell were the Republican nominee, he would edge Clinton by a few percentage points. In the Republican field, Powell is preferred by 22% of G.O.P.-leaning voters, second to Dole's 43% and well ahead of Pat Buchanan and Phil Gramm, each of whom attract only 6%. If Powell were Dole's vice-presidential choice, their ticket would beat Clinton and Al Gore, while a face-off between just Clinton and Dole shows Clinton ahead.
There are four reasons why Powell could emerge as a major figure in the 1996 race:
-- Powell himself, by disposition, inclination and personal history, is perhaps the ideal candidate to seize the large ideological center of American politics.
-- Public discontent with the two-party system has been growing over the decades, and the voters who refuse to label themselves Republicans or Democrats outnumber either party's loyalists.
-- The 1996 contest is quickly shaping up as a race between a wounded Democratic incumbent and a Republican who is a two-time presidential loser of advancing years and whose record is scrambling to get in synch with the right-wing fervor of his party. Unhappiness with these options could yield a search for a new candidate.
-- Perhaps most important, Powell, while he has not decided whether to run, is methodically positioning himself to make his own run for the office either as a Republican or independent, or to be the vice-presidential nominee on the Republican ticket.
No man in modern American political history has ever had a better chance to become President of the U.S. on his own terms, and thus to redefine the public debate in a profound and lasting way. At the same time, no man with such an advantage has seemed less driven to seize the opportunity. This reluctance, in the jujitsu of American politics, is a huge plus for the time being. As the campaign heats up, it will start to become a big negative. A dithering Powell would become the Hamlet of the 1996 race, a kind of Mario Cuomo with medals. It's not nice to fool with the political affections of the American people. Powell will soon have to say yes or no. Even if he runs as an independent, which would allow him to skip the primary races early next year, he cannot stay on the sidelines much longer and still build the kind of war chest and organization necessary for this campaign. There is nothing easy about becoming President.
Powell's appeal makes it less daunting. What exactly lies at its root? Why does nearly everyone who has worked with him sing his praises? Why is his reputation in the cynical, self-aggrandizing world of Washington nearly without blemish? "I'm sure he has faults," says Charles Duncan, a former Secretary of Energy, who worked with Powell in the Carter Administration, "but I couldn't point to one." Some associates have seen Powell as thin-skinned in the past, but they say he monitors his flaws carefully and is quickly "self-correcting."