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WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, will visit Israel. The Republican Jewish Coalition announced Tuesday that it would host Barbour in Israel Feb. 5-9. The RJC has hosted Barber in 1994, when he chaired the Republican National Committee. He will be the third potential Republican 2012 presidential candidate to visit Israel in recent weeks. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney visited Jan 13-14; ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is currently touring the country. Barbour, like Romney and Huckabee, is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli government...

Mississippi Gov Haley Barbour will visit the Republican-heavy Upstate of South Carolina Wednesday for two private events with local GOP officials to discuss a potential presidential run, POLITICO has learned. Barbour will meet with Republicans first in Greenville and then in Spartanburg. The closed-door gatherings will include party leaders and current and former elected officials, according to a South Carolina source familiar with the events. Barbour's trip to the first-in-the-South Palmetto State illustrates his increasing seriousness about a presidential bid. His appearance in the two Upstate cities comes just a few weeks after he appeared in Columbia for the inauguration...

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour wants state lawmakers to help him build a Civil Rights museum in downtown Jackson, as he attempts to move past rhetorical slip-ups that have landed him in hot water when he talks about issues of race. Barbour, a two-term governor and potential GOP presidential candidate, made the appeal during his final state of the state address Tuesday evening, just a few weeks after he found himself on the defensive for comments that seemed to minimize the racial strife of southern segregation and the civil rights movement. “The civil rights struggle is an important part of our...

A new poll shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is the early frontrunner in New Hampshire, where he holds a commanding 23-point edge over his closest potential rival -- former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The New Hampshire Journal poll, conducted by the Republican firm Magellan Strategies, found Romney comfortably at the head of the pack of rumored 2012 hopefuls with 39 percent of the vote. He's followed by Palin at 16 percent, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 10 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 8 percent and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) at 7 percent. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim...

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour recently put his foot in his mouth as all potential presidential candidates do from time to time. His gaffe, which shows up in a Weekly Standard feature article, consisted of two parts. The first part of the goof was concerning racial segregation where Barbour says “I just don't remember it being that bad”. The author of the story, Andrew Ferguson, gave his take on Barbour’s remark: "I don't think that he meant segregation wasn't that bad. I think he meant that it didn't roil the town the way some people might think it did." He added:...

WASHINGTON -- Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a potential Republican presidential candidate, rebutted critics Monday who said he is sugar-coating his state's history of racial integration.

<p>There was a hypocritical double-standard on display by the Morning Joe folks who turned Haley slowly over a spit today. Hat tip NB reader Ray R.</p> <p>Eugene Robinson took the lead in belting Barbour for sending his children to private schools in Mississippi rather than to local public schools attended by black children. Joe Scarborough chimed in with his Mississippi-childhood recollections of such post-integration private academies springing up. Mike Barnicle did his bit, contributing the tale of whites in South Boston pulling their kids out of integrated public schools in favor of parochial and private ones.</p>

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour won't say if he's running for president in 2012, but he's already working to shape the narrative around a potential bid, especially when it comes to issues like race and his background as a former lobbyist.

The folksy Mississippi governor has a leg up on the GOP competition if he runs for president: He’s played the press like a violin. Lloyd Grove on his media magic. When he was running for president and even when he wasn’t, Arizona Sen. John McCain liked to joke that the journalistic establishment was “my base.” In the case of Haley Barbour, it might not be a joke. The 63-year-old Mississippi governor, who’s considering a 2012 White House run, enjoys the friendliest relations with the Washington media elite of any prospective candidate vying for the Republican nomination. He comes by this...

SAN DIEGO – Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele’s prospects for a second term dimmed Wednesday as Republicans went public with their concerns about the committee’s fundraising and two prominent governors indicated a preference for new leadership atop the party. Asked in an interview at the Republican Governors Association (RGA) meeting here if there should be a new chairman of the party, Mississippi Gov. and outgoing RGA Chairman Haley Barbour flatly said: “Yes.” “To defeat an incumbent president, even one that’s got the political problems of this one, the RNC has to operate at absolutely maximum capacity and this year...

*snip* Compare this with the House campaign body, the NRCC. After getting clobbered over the NY-23 race and Dede Scozzafava, the NRCC took a hands off approach and let local voters choose their candidates. Not the NRSC. It doubled up around the country igniting a civil war with the grassroots — a civil war that would have never happened but their getting into Florida and doubling down. The NRSC’s argument amounts to telling the world that voters exercising their right to pick their candidates are stupid and Jim DeMint is stupid for siding with the voters. One final thought —...

The House Republican leaders are scheduled to have a press conference around 11:30 a.m. EDT.C-SPAN will carry it live. The cable networks will probably carry it also.

DNC Requests Records Related to Palin, Romney, Seven Other Possible 2012 Contenders. The Democratic National Committee formally has asked the Pentagon for reams of correspondence between military agencies and nine potential Republican presidential candidates, a clear indication that Democrats are building opposition-research files on specific 2012 contenders even before the midterm elections. An internal Army e-mail obtained by ABC News indicates that the DNC has filed Freedom of Information Act requests for "any and all records of communication" between Army departments and agencies and each of the nine Republicans -- all of whom are widely mentioned as possible challengers to...

Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi, touts his conservative credentials while in his home state. But he's been actively steering millions of dollars in Massachusetts to elect the most pro-homosexual, anti-family Republican governor and lieutenant governor candidates in America. Barbour leads the Republican Governor's Association (RGA), an independent political organization based in Washington. Charlie Baker and Richard Tisei represent the new uber-RINO left-wing country-club wave of the Massachusetts Republican Party. From a fiscal standpoint, Baker was Gov. Bill Weld's budget chief during the expansion of the "Big Dig" -- the most expensive public works project in history. Need we...

In a speech Tuesday night at a pro-life event in Houston, former presidential candidate Sarah Palin said abortion is an "essential" issues for the pro-life movement in the 2010 elections. Palin said it is important to take advantage of the opportunity the elections present to mitigate President Barack Obama's pro-abortion agenda. Palin said Obama has been responsible for "the biggest advance of the abortion industry in America" thanks to the ObamaCare bill that includes abortion funding, she said, according to CNN. She added Obama is "the most pro-abortion president to ever occupy the White House," "That's why it's essential that...

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...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Haley Barbour is the latest potential Republican presidential candidate to suggest that social issues like abortion should be taken off the table while making the economy the main focus. Despite the fact that polls show Americans strongly oppose the pro-abortion health care law, Barbour says fiscal issues should take priority. At a breakfast with reporters this morning sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, the Mississippi governor said those who focus on social issues like abortion are taking the GOP off message this election cycle. “Any issue that takes people’s eye off of unemployment, job creation, economic...

Haley Barbour Tells Pro-Life Republicans to Ditch Social Issues in 2010 Elections Washington, DC -- Haley Barbour is the latest potential Republican presidential candidate to suggest that social issues like abortion should be taken off the table while making the economy the main focus. Despite the fact that polls show Americans strongly oppose the pro-abortion health care law, Barbour says fiscal issues should take priority. http://LifeNews.com/nat6683.html

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who may seek the Republican nomination for president, is trying to sell the biggest load of revisionist nonsense about race, politics and the South that I've ever heard. Ever. He has the gall to try to portray Southern Republicans as having been enlightened supporters of the civil rights movement all along. I can't decide whether this exercise in rewriting history should be described as cynical or sinister. Whichever it is, the record has to be set straight. In a recent interview with Human Events, a conservative magazine and Web site, Barbour gave his version of how...

Primary season is all but over. The 2010 candidate field is nearly set. The strongest and most vulnerable members of both parties know who they are. But the campaign didn’t have to look like this. It’s not just the big-picture inflection points — like the White House’s decision to pursue health care reform or the congressional GOP’s lock-step vote against the stimulus — that have determined the course of the election year. It was also the personal choices or screw-ups of individual candidates. As Labor Day launches the traditional start of the fall general election campaign, here’s POLITICO’s look back...