Quotes of the Day

Among the totems in Haley Barbour's office in Jackson, Miss., is a cheeky sign that reads, "Power corrupts but absolute power is kinda cool."

In this season of broad conservative ascent, Barbour is approaching absolute power. As chairman of the Republican Governors Association, he is masterminding the capture or retention of as many as 28 governorships for his party in November. His fundraising — expected to top $90 million by Election Day — has enabled him to pour millions of dollars into voter-turnout efforts that will help all kinds of Republicans further down the ballot and generate chits from grateful recipients. And his recent decision to drop $2 million into Florida's up-for-grabs gubernatorial contest is a reminder of just how much clout one man can wield in a political realm widely regarded as atomized.

It would normally be a career-capping moment for a 62-year-old pol who has already chaired the Republican Party and won two terms as governor of Mississippi. But the man universally called Haley is now thinking of seeking the GOP nomination for President, and partly because the rest of the field is so shaky, he actually has a chance to scoop that up too. Barbour has made it clear to intimates that while he respects his potential White House rivals, he isn't intimidated by any of them.

Barbour hasn't made up his mind yet, but he certainly acts as if he is running. He is trying to turn his long record as a Washington lobbyist into an asset. He is telling his supporters to keep their powder dry. He just added a trip to New Hampshire to his schedule. And he recently acquiesced to a grilling by a roomful of Washington reporters after months of lying low.

As Barbour sees it, Barack Obama's fiscal policies are a flop with voters. And that, more than anything else, has opened the door to a huge year for his party. "I think the American people understand," Barbour explains, "we need to have more focus on jobs and the economy instead of 15 months on a so-called health-reform program that actually increases the cost of health care."

Barbour is one of the chief builders and beneficiaries of the insider Beltway power structure that helped spawn the Tea Party. That puts him at odds with the most energized segment of the GOP, led by potential 2012 rivals Sarah Palin and South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint. Which means a Barbour candidacy would depend, at some point, on Republicans' deciding that a traditional choice would present their party with the best chance of defeating Obama in a general-election contest. Barbour's fingertip feel for politics at any moment gives him, more than any of the other possible contenders, the capacity to serve as a bridge between the party's traditional and renegade wings — whether as candidate or consigliere. At a key meeting of Southern GOP activists in April, where Tea Party sentiment ran deep, Barbour issued a warning about the need for unity in a party that has widening fault lines. "Barack Obama has worn out three sets of knee pads, down on his knees praying that the conservative vote is split in 2010," Barbour told the crowd. "We can't let that happen."

If Barbour jumps into the White House race, money will be his entry ticket. The former Washington lobbyist is an unparalleled fundraiser; some GOP financial wizards believe he could bring in upwards of $75 million in 2011, a figure that only Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Palin could possibly match. His years of running the party (both in fact and de facto) have left him with a Rolodex of rainmakers and foot soldiers that reaches into all 50 states. And he has recently reminded those who are paying attention that he can slip a barb into his homey cadence. "This is a President that we know less about than any other President in history," Barbour told reporters this month. "But I have no idea why. I accept just totally at face value that he is a Christian. He said so throughout his time he has been in public life. That's good enough for me." As Henry Barbour, Mississippi's Republican national committeeman, says about his uncle, "For a big guy, he's mighty nimble."

"He's Everywhere You Turn"
Barbour came to politics as much by tradition as by instinct. His great-great-great-great grandfather Walter Leake was one of Mississippi's first two Senators and its third governor. His father, an attorney, had a fatal heart attack when Haley was 2 years old. He was raised by his mother in Yazoo City (pop. 10,000), where he still makes his home, and studied history and political science at Ole Miss. Barbour skipped part of his senior year to work on Richard Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968 and, after earning a law degree, spent several years as political director in Ronald Reagan's White House. As Republican National Committee chairman, he played a key role in developing the Contract with America and oversaw the 1994 Republican electoral tidal wave. Over the past 15 years, Barbour has accumulated friends and influence and, after a decade as an insider in D.C., wealth as well.

It was at the firm known now as BGR (the B is for Barbour) that he cemented his reputation as one of the most tireless politicos Washington has ever seen — and one of the most successful. His client list there would be an issue in any national race: BGR has represented tobacco firms and foreign governments. But Barbour also earned renown as a Republican who could battle with Democrats all day long and then invite them to kick back over an occasional toot of bourbon in the evening. At those times, Barbour could normally afford to be generous, because he won a lot more often than he lost. "The thing nobody gets about Haley," says one ally, "is that he will outwork you every time."

In 2003 he returned home to run for governor, beating an incumbent Democrat and taking on the unenviable task of trying to turn around a state that has for generations ranked at or near the bottom in all manner of economic, educational and quality-of-life measurements. Barbour has a little-known wonky side, and as governor, he has passed tort reform, held the line on spending, focused on education improvements and law enforcement and brought some big corporate employers to the state. But under the state constitution, governors have a relatively weak hand in Mississippi, and Democrats still dominate the lower house, where many of Barbour's initiatives have been stymied. When he leaves office next year, the state will still be 50th by many measures.

But in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Barbour was the only governor who looked smarter and stronger than he did before the storm began. For weeks and then for months, he was calm and inexhaustible. Throughout, he used his legendary contacts in the Bush Administration to speed relief and money to the state. At a ceremony in Gulfport on Aug. 29 commemorating the five-year anniversary of the hurricane, Father Louis Lohan offered a tribute to the governor's performance during Katrina as part of his convocation. "He's kind of like Jesus," Lohan said. "He's everywhere you turn."

And Barbour plainly loves his calling. Like Bill Clinton, Barbour is a man who simply revels in the day-to-day practice of politics. Unpretentious and approachable, he introduces himself as Haley and closes his speeches with saucy laugh lines. "Looks like there are some goodies back there," he said at a ceremony for a long-term housing project in Pass Christian. "Got to beat me to the desserts." At a cocktail reception before a charity golf tournament, he gleefully told the crowd, as he stepped down from the dais, "The bar's open."

But Will He Run?
In the brazen Tea Party era, Barbour can seem a bit old-fashioned. Some of his own associates say he lacks flesh-and-blood passion in his public performances. Unlike Reagan, Barbour only infrequently mentions real people to make his points. His speeches are spiked with quick humor and biting rhetoric, but he rarely inspires emotion or fervor. And though he hails from the buckle of the Bible Belt, he is an unabashed big-tent, Big Business Republican who has never drunk very deeply from the social-values trough. Democrats from Donna Brazile to David Axelrod consider him cooperative and, in some cases, a friend. And Barbour would return the compliment. Several decades in Washington taught him never to make an enemy he doesn't need.

Barbour's status as an elder statesman from something of a bygone era in a restive party adds to doubts about whether he will run. More than that, he has commented to friends that as he ages, his family is a priority, and Marsha, his wife of some 40 years (they have two sons and four grandchildren), has never been particularly enthusiastic about the high-flying lifestyle her husband has led in politics. He is visibly overweight and shuffles as much as he walks. (He once owned a piece of one of Washington's more artery-clogging steak houses.) And for all of Barbour's prominence, neither his lobbying work nor his record as governor has endured the kind of scrutiny a presidential run would bring. His associates express open concern about Barbour's financial and professional ties to the firm he stepped away from after being sworn in as governor. All of which may be why some of the closest observers of the process are betting that Barbour is more likely to be a kingmaker than king, wielding his influence with his fellow governors to get behind a consensus presidential candidate.

Barbour is realistic about the potential hurdles to both winning the nomination and beating Obama. But in a recent interview with a conservative think tank, he revealed an effort to reconcile his vulnerabilities with his ambition and, just maybe, try out some lines for next year. "If I run for President, what you see is what you get. And I am from Mississippi. I do have a Southern accent," he said. "I was a lobbyist — and a pretty damned good one... The next President of the United States, on Jan. 21, 2013, is going to start lobbying. He's going to be lobbying Congress. He's going to be lobbying other countries. He's going to be lobbying the business community. He's going to be lobbying the labor unions and the governors, because that's what Presidents do, and I feel like it's an advantage for me to have the chance to do that."

And then he added, "As far as Southern accent and Mississippi, the country may be looking for the anti-Obama in 2012. Don't know. Could be."

• Mark Halperin