Family members and confidants of retired Gen. Colin Powell tried Wednesday to slam the door shut on any possibility that he would agree, if asked, to be Sen. Bob Dole's running mate.
"If he didn't want the top job, why should anyone think he would want the second job when, in my opinion, he could have had it all," said his son, Michael Powell, a Washington lawyer. "Why would he want to play second-fiddle? He firmly believes he does not want to do this now."With Dole having all but numerically locked up the Republican presidential nomination, speculation has shifted to his choice of a running mate and how that choice will play with rival Patrick J. Buchanan and his supporters.
Buchanan has threatened a walkout at the Republican convention in San Diego in August if Dole selects Powell.
Dole raised the possibility of putting Powell on the ticket Tuesday night after sweeping seven primaries and winning enough delegates to all but assure him the nomination.
"This man (Powell) has been a soldier all his life, he's responded whenever his country needed him," Dole said. "And I believe if anybody went to Gen. Powell - you know, I may be totally wrong - and laid out the case . . . why it's necessary, that he would suit up again."
Some old political hands said that if Dole presses, Powell could resist only so long.
"The point will come when he can't say no because he is a man who responds to duty," said Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma who teaches at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
But sources close to the family said Wednesday that there was no compelling reason for Powell to run for vice president: A nonpartisan call to duty is one thing, a partisan call to suit up, quite another.
"I don't think it's sufficient to say for Republicans to fail to regain the White House - is a national disaster," one family friend said.
The source said that while Powell declared himself a Republican in November when he announced he would not run for president, his loyalty to the party hasn't had time to build up.
"What's in it for him? He doesn't need any money, he doesn't need any of them. They have nothing to give him, nothing to offer him. Any decision he makes is based on pure conviction," the source said.