Colin + Obama (2008) w/ Leah Wright Rigueur

It’s October 24th. This day in 2008, former secretary of state Colin Powell goes on Meet the Press and endorses Barack Obama for president — over his longtime friend, and fellow Republican, John McCain.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Leah Wrigth Rigueur to talk about why Colin rebuked his own party, what Obama represented, and what it says about the crossroads he found himself in that moment.

Leah is a professor at Johns Hopkins and the author of The Loneliness of the Black Republican — she’s also co-host with Kellie of You Get A Podcast!

Sign up for our newsletter! We’ll be sending out links to all the stuff we recommended later this week.

Find out more at thisdaypod.com

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia