Of all the things Haley Barbour is or isn't, he is at least self-aware. When Barbour speaks, it takes you to the shoulder of a Southern highway after you've been pulled over for driving with New York plates. If Barbour doesn't do uniformed traffic stops in his spare time he should because it was the part he was born to play. Knowing this, potential candidate Barbour had to find a way to fit in with today's Martin Luther King loving America. Unfortunately, the only way he could do that was lie. To get the "biased liberal media" hound dogs off his trail he took himself out of the running completely, for the time being.
Those same hounds have helped marginalize Bachmann with her provincial arrogance and they are now on Rick Perry's trail trying to link him with his book "Fed Up." Though it may seem like Barbour is the first in a string of loser Republicans, he may actually be playing his cards right for a vice president slot. Obviously more cards need to be dealt his way.
Barbour could only balance a ticket with a moderate on top. Even though Barbour is not total Tea, he is very Tea friendly. He has never had to say the words "Let's take our country back" because his drawl already says it for him. Even if Barbour was the biggest tax and spend liberal pansy, no one would believe it with that accent. While a Tea Party nominee would be extreme enough to round the ticket out with a running mate just as extreme as they were, Barbour knows his best shot would be running with a Romney type.
Running as the number two would make Barbour's lying about his youthful experimentation with desegregation less of a big deal. People just don't care that much about the VP candidate. Whatever dogs him won't more than he could brush off with a simple "my mistake, it may have been Paul Robeson."
As for Mitt, he would probably jump at a chance to have Barbour on board. After months in his own media blackout, Barbour will re-emerge much fresher than anyone that had just been through any part of the primary process. Barbour at Romney's side would somehow lessen the funk of Romney's past progressivism including Romneycare and his realized pledge to give in to the gay agenda in Massachusetts.
This is a glimpse of a possibility. Perry is the poll leader currently, but he is also very new. For both reasons he is subject to a scrutiny as intense as his starshine. Perry's cranky anti-everything screed "Fed Up" is the rock from under which he would be trying to scidder if his tail wasn't caught (if I could draw I'd be a political cartoonist). Eventually we will probably have Tricky Mitt to kick around again. As the right-wing dominance of the primary process recedes and cooler heads prevail, Mitt will probably retake a tepid lead as the Tea candidates clamor for the same votes.
As much as the right of the right fringe is credited with driving Republican primaries, that may be only an early race phenomenon. Bush was not theeee most conservative candidate in the 2000 Republican primaries. McCain was one of the least conservative candidate during the 2008 Republican primaries. All the talk is about Rick Perry for right now anyway. It seems we have all but forgotten Mrs. Bachmann's little victory in the Iowa Straw Poll? Now it's been two weeks since anyone has even asked what her definition of "submission" is. Mitt is far from done.
Don't think none of this is occurring to Barbour who is probably rooting harder than any other pure conservatives for one of them elitist fellas to pull ahead. He knows he is what they need if they can pull out a nomination. Otherwise, what are you chances as a Mormon driving through the South with out of state plates. That's the time you want a sheriff's escort.
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