If Republicans score what looms as a substantial victory in November’s elections, one GOP leader will have a special reason to celebrate.
For Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, orchestrating a Republican comeback against a freshman Democratic president would be, in the words of Yogi Berra, “deja vu all over again.”
In 1994, when Republicans overturned a prior Democratic Congress, Barbour headed the Republican National Committee. This time, he heads the Republican Governors Association, where his fundraising prowess has fueled GOP state campaigns and helped other races.
Acclaimed by Politico as the “most powerful Republican in American politics,” Barbour concedes he may seek the goal that eluded Republicans after their 1994 triumph: the White House. No potential GOP 2012 candidate is smarter, more politically adept, more engaging and more experienced. He’ll have an advantage in seeking the many Southern delegates. But no candidate carries more political baggage.
Barbour’s propensity for saying controversial things adds to doubts this country would replace its first black president with a white Southern conservative. Of course, if unemployment persists at near 10 percent, anything may be possible.
For better or worse, Barbour, 62, sounds like the good-old-boy Mississippian he is. Like Bill Clinton, he’s prone to spouting Southernisms, though with a more pronounced accent. Of Obama, he said, “Democrats are running from him like scalded dogs.” The Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson has pointed out some of his potential problems, including:
• His lobbying past. When asked about lobbying for the tobacco industry, he volunteered that, while he hadn’t represented the gun industry, he was on the board of a company that owned Federal Cartridge, which makes ammunition.
• Race. He turned some heads, and attracted some negative columns, by telling Robinson that he attended integrated schools in predominantly segregated 1960s Mississippi and “never thought twice about it.”
• Obama’s background. Barbour said he took “totally at face value” Obama’s statement he is a Christian. But he gave a nod to “birthers” seeking to sow doubts by adding, “This is a president that we know less about than any president in history.”
