If you had been living in America in 2004, and following American politics, you would’ve known that this is not what happened at all. There was actually a very strong movement in America to kick George W. Bush off the Republican ticket and replace him with Powell. Powell was doing much better in the polls than Bush, because the general consensus was that he had much more intelligence and integrity than Bush. in fact Powell was doing better in the polls than Kerry, the Democratic candidate. The only reason that Powell didn’t run was that he didn’t want to. The pressure for him to run was so great that he had to make a specific public announcement saying he wouldn’t run. after that announcement, almost everyone assumed that Kerry would win, because he was clobbering Bush in the polls, and mopped the floor with him during the debates.

so why did Bush win? There was actually a fair amount of evidence that the Republicans committed massive poll fraud.There was not enough evidence to overturn the election, but several thousand votes were disqualified, and there were numerous cases of highly suspicious irregularities. The gap between the exit polls and the alleged vote count was suspiciously wide. A gap that size was used to invalidate an entire election in the Ukraine.

I did a lot of research on this at the time, but I don’t have my notes anymore, so there’s no obligation to believe me about this if you don’t want to. There’s not much point in trying to change anyone’s mind about a question which is now purely of historical interest. But the historical record does give good reason for dismissing the idea that the American public blamed Powell and exonerated Bush for the Iraq war mess. if anything, it was the other way around.