Barbour playing the Mississippi game of politics
Gov. Haley Barbour, who described himself to a reporter as a “fat redneck,” making him unsuitable as a presidential candidate, certainly has been fattening his campaign war chest lately. As some publications have noted, Haley’s getting more serious about a 2012 GOP presidential bid.
Online political newspaper politico.com reported that Barbour on June 24 staged a big fundraiser in two Washington restaurants for one of his three (yes, three) political action committees. It was believed to have raised $60,000 for a PAC he established in Georgia. The trick was that Georgia’s lenient campaign laws allow him to receive big corporate checks not allowed by Mississippi law, or many other states.
The portly, drawling Barbour, who ends eight years of his term-limited governorship in January, 2012, has been traversing the country for political appearances, with his travel and expenses picked up by the Republican Governors Conference which he heads. That’s why his flights don’t show up on the flight reports on use of the state jet.
Barbour has been a GOP political operative ever since 1968 when he worked in Richard Nixon’s campaign, working his way up to chairman of the Republican National Committee in the mid-1990s, then helping to engineer the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. When he opened his lobby shop in 1996, it was like stepping through a swinging door as he took GOP big donors such as big tobacco with him as clients. What the average Mississippian does not realize, Barbour is again a top party boss at the national level. Even if he is not the party’s presidential candidate, he’ll have a big say-so in who is.
Meantime, Mississippi serves as Barbour’s toy box while he plays the game of politics at a much higher level. Back home, our primary concern is whether he can hand-pick his successor in Jackson, just to show his political muscle.
Desoto Times
7/8/10
Magnolia Tribune
