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News Analysis: Disasters often define political careers Disasters can boost or break political careers, in Mississippi as in other places. Look what Hurricane Katrina did to Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat who chose not to seek re-election in 2007 after critics said she bumbled responding to the 2005 storm. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, was seen as having a firm control of his state's Katrina recovery, though some said his administration helped enrich Barbour's allies with contracts doing legal work and other jobs. Barbour easily won a second term in '07. South Mississippi's congressman, Gene Taylor, a Democrat who often bucks his own party's leadership, has shown an evolving toughness in his response to the oil disaster. On May 1, Taylor and Republican U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner of Alabama spent more than three hours on a Coast Guard flight over the spill. Taylor said the spill was "not Armageddon." He said he had seen a sheen on the water's surface and some of the oil resembled chocolate milk. Taylor's congressional website has a video clip of him quizzing Steven Newman, president and CEO of Transocean Ltd., the Switzerland-based company that owned the Deepwater Horizon. The rig was flagged in the Marshall Islands. AP 6/28/10