In an appearance on Thursday’s broadcast of “CBS This Morning,” former Secretary of State Colin Powell said he had no regrets about endorsing President Barack Obama in 2008, and once again endorsed the incumbent president over Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
“You know, I voted for him in 2008, and I plan to stick with him in 2012, and I’ll be voting for he and for Vice President Joe Biden next month,” Powell said.
Powell, author of “It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership,” explained that his reasoning for giving Obama his vote this second time around dealt with his handling of the financial crisis, even though he said the economy has much room for improvement.
“Let me say why. When he took over, the country was in very, very difficult straits,” Powell said. “We were in the one of the worst recessions we had seen in recent times, close to a depression. The fiscal system was collapsing. Wall Street was in chaos. We had 800,000 jobs lost in that first month of the Obama administration, and unemployment would peak a few months later at 10 percent.”
“So we were in real trouble,” he continued. “The auto industry was collapsing, the housing was starting to collapse, and we were in very difficult straits. And I saw over the next several years, stabilization come back in the financial community, housing is now starting to pick up after four years, it’s starting to pick up. Consumer confidence is rising. And so I think generally we’ve come out of the dive, and we’re starting to gain altitude. It doesn’t mean our problems are solved. There are lots of problems still out there.”
Powell praised Obama also on his handling of foreign policy, explaining he had gotten us out of one war and had not gotten us into any new wars. He added where Romney was lacking was also in the economy, where the former secretary of state expressed his lack in confidence over Romney’s tax-cut proposals to resurrect the economy.
(h/t RealClearPolitics Video)