The Washington Post this morning ranked the most influential voices in the GOP right now. Of course, Dick Cheney is way up there. But buried in the rankings is more chatter about the influence of Mississippi governor and former tobacco lobbyist Haley Barbour, who may be mulling a presidential run in 2012. Barbour has been making all the right trips around the country; on June 24, he’ll pop in for his second recent visit to New Hampshire. And, he’s term-limited so Barbour will be in the job market come 2011.
The Post posits that Barbour will ultimately decide that trying to run against a reformer as a former uber-lobbyist probably is a lost cause, but I’m still rooting for him to run. What could be more fun that a bubba like Barbour facing off with Obama on the stump, where he could brag about his record of say, dumping thousands of poor pregnant women off Medicaid and other such feats? As campaign fodder goes, Barbour has at least as much color to offer as Mitt Romney, one of the presumed front-runners, though he might be hard pressed to compete with the dog-on-top-of-the-car vacation stories and all that Mormon stuff. Still, Barbour’s entry into the race would liven things up in the press pool considerably.
