Higher ground in endorsements

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

For president of the United States, I endorse - no one. Not my job. Even if it were within my purview to suggest a better man or woman for the job of leading this country and this world out of its doldrums and disasters, what would it matter?

Nada. I’d be just another voice - that of a registered independent - among thousands whistling in the wicked blogosphere wind.

Leave the high-profile pronouncements to such prominent and prestigious figures as former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, a Republican who on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, as a “transformational” figure.

Now, that takes the stakes of political nods to “a ho notha level,” as the MAD TV character says. But at what cost? To him? To other moderate or black Republicans?

As I wrote in a column in July, Mr. Powell’s “brave” and “thoughtful” 6 1/2 minute endorsement was not unexpected. He, like a number of notable black Republicans at the time, were holding back on their support for their party’s candidate, Sen. John McCain, in light of Mr. Obama’s historic run for president. For some, their hesitancy came from their distaste for what they viewed as the negative and exclusionary direction in which their party seemed headed.

Deborah Burstion-Donbraye of Cleveland was among those Republican Party leaders who boldly stated her support for Mr. Obama. Not because the Illinois senator is biracial, but she said then that “I’ve been a Republican all my life but I don’t see what bone with what meat [Republicans] are giving blacks to bite into.”

On Tuesday, she bristled at the notion that black Republicans endorsed Mr. Obama purely for racial reasons.

“This is not a Jesse Jackson moment or an Al Sharpton moment,” she said. “If [Mr. Obama] were a young, white politician and saying the same things and inspiring the same people, I’d vote for him against my party.”

If you reduce a person to a single trait such as race or sex, something they can’t do anything about, she explained, you take away all that they have done in their lives to become all that they are. “That is wrongheaded.”

Using the analogy of a commander, she said Mr. Powell’s thorough endorsement of Mr. Obama was “brave because he assessed the situation and decided what was best for the country, not what’s best for the party.”

Besides, “what does he get out of it?” she asked.

Mrs. Burstion-Donbraye, an international business consultant, reiterated Tuesday that her primary reason for supporting Mr. Obama, “who is multicultural in his DNA and in his experiences,” flows from “the face of America that he puts on the world.” “He will certainly repair our reputation with world leaders as well as forging new and stronger relationships,” she added.

For the self-described “Obamacan,” her endorsement came at a high price, as she suspects will be the case with other Republicans and black conservatives, including Mr. Powell. She lost a coveted position on a pro-life board in Cleveland, of which she had been elected president three times, because Mr. Obama is pro-choice.

Some commentators suggested that Mr. Powell’s endorsement will free other Republicans to reject the party ticket this election.

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