Visual source: Newseum
Haley Barbour edition.
Dan Balz:
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s surprise decision on Monday not to run for president set off a scramble inside the Republican Party for pieces of his financial and political network. It also raised questions about the challenges the party may face in trying to unseat President Obama...
Obama, too, is less popular than he was when he was sworn in two years ago. But he comes to the race with the significant advantages of incumbency. As he steams ahead with fundraising and organizing, Republicans are under growing pressure to tamp down concerns about whether they can find a candidate capable of defeating him.
You don't run if you can't win. It's that simple.
Greg Dworkin (that's me):
Haley Barbour, as I and others noted this morning, would have been a candidate who could not have won enough moderates outside the South and might even have lost some tea party conservatives over his establishment ties and lobbyist past. Barbour doesn't need to run. He's had a very good career for himself doing what he's doing.
So, the weak GOP field just got weaker. And if Mitch Daniels declines to run, we'll get the fun of watching Romney and Pawlenty duke it out for "serious candidate" status (Jon Huntsman remains an also-ran) while the "not serious" candidates (Trump, Bachmann) get most of the attention.
Lou Zickar:
Haley Barbour has gone from candidate to kingmaker. Every potential GOP nominee will now be lining up for his endorsement. His name may not be on the ballot in 2012, but his political influence will continue to be felt.
Peter Bergman:
Haley Barbour has taken a bow and gracefully exited the pack of Republican hopefuls, claiming that he has insufficient fire in his belly. Lots of belly, not enough fire.
Haley's no fool. He read the tea party leaves and found no auger of good fortune, even in the dregs, which is where his poll numbers reside. Now, he can go back to what he's really good at -- being the GOP's No. 1 financial flypaper. Roll him out at a Beltway bash, a Hilton Head hideaway or a corporate retreat and Barbour comes back loaded with billionaire bucks and corporate cash, which he dutifully dispenses to his colleagues who have stayed on the stump, taking his vig out in favors down the line.
I suspect that more than one Republican ringleader is not unhappy to see Haley exiting the Big Tent. They must have an inkling of what a haircut the party would take if Barbour made the cut.
Jonathan Capehart:
But as much as I’m happy that Barbour is not running, his departure robs us of what would have been one of the most interesting orations in political history. We all know he has a blind spot the size of the Confederate flag when it comes to race, the civil rights movement and his place during that turbulent time in the South and the United States. So much so that The Post’s Karen Tumulty reported last month that “Barbour . . . is is considering giving a major speech on the subject. The likely venue: a 50th anniversary reunion of the Freedom Riders, set for late May in Jackson.”
No matter what he said, Barbour’s speech would have been fascinating.
Stanley Fish, not about Barbour:
The fact that this realm of the less than fully enfranchised has at times included children, women, blacks, Native Americans, Asians, homosexuals and Jews as well as animals and trees tells us that there is a counter-narrative in which standing has been extended in an ever-more-generous arc. Stone quotes Charles Darwin observing that while man’s sympathies were at an early stage confined to himself and his immediate family, over time “his sympathies became more tender and widely diffused, extending to men of all races, to the imbecile, maimed and other useless members of society, and finally to the lower animals.” In the same spirit, the philosopher Richard Rorty urges that “We should stay on the lookout for marginalized people — people whom we still instinctively think of as ‘they’ rather than ‘us.’” Indeed, we should “keep trying to expand our sense of ‘us’ as far as we can.”
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