POLITICO has learned that Barbour is weighing the prospect of a 2012 White House bid, and convened a private meeting last Thursday with a group of some of his oldest and closest advisers, some of whom flew in from the East Coast to Jackson. The gathering stretched for six hours, during which time the topic of a presidential run was discussed.
One adviser familiar with the state capital sit-down said that Barbour concluded that he did not need to make a decision now and that the group should meet again after this fall’s election.
“He’d instantly be in the top-tier of candidates,” said Fred Malek, one of the GOP’s leading moneymen who is working with Barbour on governor’s races this year but is also close with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
“Haley starts with enormous credibility,” said former Bush adviser Karl Rove. “He has been a very successful governor, a very successful party chairman, and his stewardship at the RGA has put him in touch with some movers and shakers he may not have known before. And every one of those experiences has broadened his army of advisers and deepened the commitment of the ones he already had.”
Barbour is already being urged to consider a run by some of the GOP’s top donors, say multiple sources inside and outside his camp.
“To the degree that there is an establishment that is still relevant, a lot of those people have said to him, ‘I don’t want to get involved in 2012 until I know what you’re doing,’” said one Barbour adviser.
Further, Barbour has warmed to the possibility in part because the Republican competition for the nomination still is sparse.
“There’s no dominant frontrunner and there’s even debate about who came in second last time,” said Ed Rogers, Barbour’s former lobbying partner and friend dating back to their work together on President Ford’s 1976 campaign.
As formidable as he would be in a GOP primary—particularly if he becomes the only Southerner in the race—Barbour’s vulnerabilities in a general election would be considerable.
As a former corporate lobbyist with a roster of controversial clients, he’d have Democratic oppo researchers salivating. More than that, is the question of appearance: does the GOP really want to nominate the governor of Mississippi—one who looks and sounds every bit like the Yazoo City, Mississippi, native he is—to take on the country’s first black president?
Democrats appear to relish the contrast and are already seizing on the race issue.
“Being someone who maintains that slavery was an ‘insignificant’ episode in history that didn't ‘amount to diddly’ isn't the type of profile I'd base a national campaign on,” said Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan, alluding to Barbour’s comments on CNN Sunday about Virginia GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell’s controversial recognition of Confederate history. “But, hey, he can always fall back on the fact that he's a former lobbyist.”
What Barbour actually said in the interview was that McDonnell’s resolution—which originally made no mention of slavery—was “not significant” and that the flap amounted to “trying to make a big deal out of something doesn't amount to diddly.”
He also said that “anybody that thinks that you have to explain to people that slavery is a bad thing—I think that goes without saying.”
Still, Barbour’s breezy treatment of the delicate issue, and the Democrats’ aggressive response, illustrates what he’d face in a matchup with Obama.
Read more at Politico
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