Read the complete Face The Nation transcript. Excerpt below:
SCHIEFFER: Rush Limbaugh said the other day that the party would probably be better off if Colin Powell left and just became a Democrat. Colin Powell said Republicans would be better off if they didn’t have Rush Limbaugh out speaking for them. Where do you come down?
DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I’d go with Rush Limbaugh, I think. I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.
SCHIEFFER: So you think that he’s not a Republican?
CHENEY: I just noted he endorsed the Democratic candidate for president this time, Barack Obama . I assume that that is some indication of his loyalty and his interest.
SCHIEFFER: And you said you’d take Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell. CHENEY: I would.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIEFFER: Well, there you have it, General. So I guess the first question, are you a Republican?
POWELL: Let me answer it this way, if I may, Bob. Rush will not get his wish. And Mr. Cheney was misinformed. I am still a Republican.
And I’d like to point out that in the course of my 50 years of voting for presidents, I have voted for the person I thought was best- qualified at that time to lead the nation. Last year I thought it was President-now Barack Obama .
For the previous 20 years I voted solidly for Republican candidates. Voted for Ronald Reagan twice. George Bush 41 twice. George Bush 43 twice. I spent eight years in Bush administrations. I served Ronald Reagan for two years. I spoke at the 1996 convention and I spoke at the 2000 convention.
What the concern about me is, well, is he too moderate? I have always felt that the Republican Party should be more inclusive than it generally has been over the years. And I believe we need a strong Republican Party that is not just anchored in the base but has built on the base to include more individuals.
And if we don’t do that, if we don’t reach out more, the party is going to be sitting on a very, very narrow base. You can only do two things with a base. You can sit on it and watch the world go by, or you can build on the base.
And I believe we should build on the base because the nation needs two parties. Two parties debating each other. But what we have to do is debate and define who we are and what we are and not just listen to diktats that come down from the right wing of the party.
SCHIEFFER: Well, why do you think the former vice president said what he said?
POWELL: Well, I assume that was his point of view. But he was misled if he thought I left the party. You know, neither he nor Rush Limbaugh are members of the membership committee of the Republican Party. I get to make my decision on that.
And so I will continue to work in a way that I think is helpful to the country and helpful to the party. And there are good reasons for this. I mean, in the military we have something called after- action reviews. After a battle or after a training exercise you bring all of the leaders in. And you say, what’s going right? What’s going wrong? What did do right or wrong? And how do we move forward?
It’s a no-holds-barred candid discussion of where we are. That’s what the Republican Party needs now. When you look at the results of the election last year, lost the presidency by 10 million votes. Lost that campaign by 10 million votes.
We saw both houses of Congress switch to the Democrats. We saw whole sections of the country move to the Democratic column, Virginia, my state, Democratic. Florida, Nevada, other places.
We looked at all of the demographics of it, a Gallup poll had a series of indicators. And in almost every demographic indicator, the Republican Party is losing. North, south, east, west. Men, women, whites, blacks, Hispanics.
And I think the Republican Party has to take a hard look at itself and decide what kind of party are we?
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