The Boy from Yazoo City

[Valin]

Weekly Standard:

Haley Barbour, Mississippi’s favorite son.
ANDREW FERGUSON
12/27/10

(Snip)

Since he first entered national Republican politics, as a young lawyer from Yazoo City, Mississippi, Barbour has been one of the most popular figures in the party. “If you don’t like Haley Barbour,” Gillespie said, “you’ve got something wrong with you.” Amiable and humorous and tirelessly upbeat, his persona is large and unusual enough to pass for colorful in today’s politics. There’s the voice, for one thing: an accent so rich and unapologetic—nine comes out nan—that a Yankee used to the gentler roundings of more acculturated Southerners might think he’s getting his leg pulled. The Barbour style of pronunciation involves a fatal collision of sibilants, as if he’d left the dentist’s office before the Novocain could wear off. He doesn’t so much walk as saunter. Though not tall, and not as heavy as his legend suggests—what poundage there is looks tightly packed—he’s physically imposing, not to say intimidating, with impressively large hands and head, and short thick arms that swing freely when he walks. You don’t have to be a Midwestern weenie to imagine him as the Southern sheriff in Deliverance, squinting at Jon Voight through aviator sunglasses and suggesting he might want to get his pale Yankee ass out of town.

But some Republicans have started to see more than a fundraising genius in the good old boy from Yazoo. “Being a very successful two-term governor makes a difference,” Gillespie said. “He’s still a hail-fellow well-met, he still loves people, he’s still a master of the political game. But after Katrina”—the hurricane that wiped out a third of Mississippi in Barbour’s second year in office—“after the budget fights he’s been in, taking on the trial lawyers, there’s a gravitas there now. It used to be everyone just called him ‘Haley.’ Now they’re just as likely to call him ‘Governor Barbour.’ ”

But President Barbour? All year he has been deflecting questions about his presidential ambitions, saying he wouldn’t consider the topic while he concentrated on the business at hand—a big Republican win in November. (“The main thing,” he would say, “is to keep the main thing the main thing.” This is one of his “Barbourisms.” Being a cracker-barrel aphorist is also enough to make a politician colorful nowadays. Another Barbourism, slightly more ominous: “Ask for forgiveness, not permission.”) Yet in San Diego, with the election two weeks gone, Barbour still wouldn’t budge when reporters pressed him, beyond an admission that he’d think about the matter and decide next spring.

In San Diego he was surrounded by governors who with little effort can see themselves as president too: Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and probably more we haven’t heard of. When the governors lined up for a picture in the Hilton ballroom, however, it was Barbour who maneuvered himself into the middle of the line-up. Their bubbles didn’t matter here, and no one tried to stop him.

(Snip)

[Rheo]

That was a long read, but very good.

Thanks Valin!

[righteousmomma]

I agree with Rheo -- excellent read.

[Valin]

I agree with Rheo -- excellent read.

 

 

I like him...a lot.

+ Can you imagine the hue and cry from the loony toon left over a white guy from Mississippi living in the WH! Talk about fun!

[Rheo]

 

I like him...a lot.

+ Can you imagine the hue and cry from the loony toon left over a white guy from Mississippi living in the WH! Talk about fun!

I hope he runs! Didn't realize that he and Mitch Daniels were good friends.

[cudjo]

Very good, I've liked him for several years now.

[Geee]

OK. Where's the like option?

[Pepper]

That was a long read, but very good.

Thanks Valin!

 

I would have preferred more pictures.

[Pepper]

Barbour did a good job as RNC chair during the 90s.

 

Be nice if he could do something about litigation in "Tortsissippi" but that may be beyond his ability.

 

 

Haley Barbour Comments on the Judicial Bribery Scandal

 

 

HERRING/‘The House of Zeus’ and ‘Kings of Tort’ by Jim Herring

[Valin]

[Pepper]

I didn't watch Barbour.

 

Somehow my youtube ended up watching Rational optimism with Matt Ridley: Chapter 1 of 5.

 

How's that for off topic. He speaks in large perspective, It's relative. It's the local perspective that hits most people.

 

War deaths may be down but try telling that to those who lost sons in Iraq or Afghanistan.

 

Life span increasing 5 hours a day? We're at the upper end so it's not like yours and mine are increasing 5 hrs a day.

 

[ErnstBlofeld]

In the 1990s you had two great RNC chairmen,Haley Barbour and Jim Nicholson. These two men raised a ton of cash for the RNC and kept it unified.

[Valin]

I didn't watch Barbour.

 

Somehow my youtube ended up watching Rational optimism with Matt Ridley: Chapter 1 of 5.

 

How's that for off topic. He speaks in large perspective, It's relative. It's the local perspective that hits most people.

 

War deaths may be down but try telling that to those who lost sons in Iraq or Afghanistan.

 

Life span increasing 5 hours a day? We're at the upper end so it's not like yours and mine are increasing 5 hrs a day.

 

 

 

Can't say why that would be. It worked fine for me. You might try NRO: Uncommon knowledge Scroll down to MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 2010. Hope this helps.

 

Of course it could be part of a giant insidious PLOT