US News

POWELL GOES FOR O

Republican former Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president, saying Obama would do a better job than John McCain of handling America’s economic woes and improving its standing in the world.

“I think we need a transformational figure. I think we need a president who is a generational change, and that’s why I’m supporting Barack Obama,” Powell told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff criticized the negative tone of McCain’s campaign, the Arizona senator’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate and their focus on Obama’s ties to Vietnam-era radical William Ayers.

“This Bill Ayers situation that’s been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign,” Powell said. “But Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed-out terrorist. Well, then, why do we keep talking about him?”

The endorsement came as Obama announced he raised a record $150 million in September, more than double the $66 million he raised the month before. The Illinois senator’s campaign said it had 632,000 new donors in September.

McCain, who has accepted public financing, is limited to spending a total of $84 million for his campaign.

In his endorsement, Gen. Powell said he doesn’t believe Palin is “ready to be president” and he found McCain “a little unsure as to how to deal with the economic problems that we were having. Almost every day, there was a different approach.”

McCain tried to dismiss Powell’s endorsement, saying he had the support of four other former secretaries of state – Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger and Alexander Haig.

“This doesn’t come as a surprise,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

On a campaign stop in Westerville, Ohio, McCain called Obama’s plan to tax the wealthy “one of the tenets of socialism.”

Obama, campaigning in Fayetteville, NC, replied that “it’s kind of hard to figure how Warren Buffett endorsed me, Colin Powell endorses me, and John McCain thinks I’m embracing socialism.”

daphne.retter@nypost.com