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Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour issued a stern warning to conservatives Friday: relent on ideological purity in the primaries or risk losing the general election. "We're going to nominate someone for president who doesn't agree with you on everything and who you don’t agree with on everything," Barbour said. "But I'll tell you what. You're going to agree with them a whole lot more than you agree with Barack Obama."

Gov. Haley Barbour issued a warning to social conservatives in choosing their Republican nominee for 2012: “Purity is the enemy of victory.” “Remember purity in politics, purity is the enemy of victory,” Barbour said. “We can’t start out with the idea out as the Faith & Freedom Coalition that our candidate’s got to agree with me on every single thing. We cannot expect our candidate to be pure. Winning is about unity. Winning is about us sticking together to achieve the main thing.” “Conservatives, religious people, small government people, we are not going to have purity. We’re not going to...

INDIANAPOLIS -- With 1,100 people chanting "Run Mitch, Run," Gov. Mitch Daniels took the stage here Thursday night and did something he's never done before: He introduced his wife Cheri, and then he turned the microphone over to her to address the sold-out crowd. It was Cheri Daniels' first-ever speech at a big political event in all the years she has been Indiana's First Lady. And with speculation over whether her husband will enter the presidential race now at fever-pitch, her mere presence at the podium for the annual state GOP dinner had everyone searching for clues and hidden meanings....

Nearly 600 homes have been flooded and thousands evacuated in Rena Lara as waters from the Mississippi river and its tributaries rose to record levels on Tuesday. Officials have assured residents of immediate relief measures and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour puts the loss of crops from the floods at $150 million to $200 million. He said, “The state is asking local officials to get in touch with people who might have no electricity and phones and thus no way to get word of the flooding.” [Snip] The record levels of water in the Mississippi River since the 1920s and 1930s...

"I will not be a candidate for president next year. This has been a difficult, personal decision, and I am very grateful to my family for their total support of my going forward, had that been what I decided. "Hundreds of people have encouraged me to run and offered both to give and raise money for a presidential campaign. Many volunteers have organized events in support of my pursuing the race. Some have dedicated virtually full time to setting up preliminary organizations in critical, early states and to helping plan what has been several months of intensive activity. "I greatly...

Barbour will not seek GOP nomination By Michael O'Brien - 04/25/11 03:15 PM ET Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) took himself out of the running for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday. Barbour surprised most observers by saying in a statement that he wouldn't run for president in 2012. "I will not be a candidate for president next year," he said. "This has been a difficult, personal decision, and I am very grateful to my family for their total support of my going forward, had that been what I decided." The Mississippi governor had been seen as a favorite by...

Yesterday the Washington Times published an article on the continuing conflicts over foreign policy within the GOP and the Conservative Movement. NewsReal Blog‘s Editor-In-Chief David Horowitz was quoted: David Horowitz, a prominent member of the party’s neoconservative wing, said his own views are changing and he has come around to Mr. Barbour’s position. “I agree with Haley Barbour and am not surprised that he too has come to this conclusion,” Mr. Horowitz said. “Afghanistan is now our longest war, in large part because we are trying to remake a nation which has barely emerged from the seventh century, and in...

Yesterday the Washington Times published an article on the continuing conflicts over foreign policy within the GOP and the Conservative Movement. NewsReal Blog's Editor-In-Chief David Horowitz was quoted: David Horowitz, a prominent member of the party's neoconservative wing, said his own views are changing and he has come around to Mr. Barbour's position. "I agree with Haley Barbour and am not surprised that he too has come to this conclusion," Mr. Horowitz said. "Afghanistan is now our longest war, in large part because we are trying to remake a nation which has barely emerged from the seventh century, and in many...

(snip) But there are four solid reasons why Barbour could be the Republican sleeper in 2012. Let’s look at them in ascending order. 4. The Republican field, less than 10 months from the 2012 Iowa caucuses, does not have a front runner yet. Mitt Romney has troubles with evangelicals and small government conservatives. Sarah Palin has squandered her fame (though not her fortune) and now looks unserious. Mike Huckabee doesn’t want it … the telltale sign is that he has comfortably settled into his old overweight self. Newt Gingrich, though he imagines himself a Churchill in the wilderness, is past...

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) recently spoke to Business people in Chicago and managed to say what is on all of our minds. After the president and his Party berated president Bush and promising pie in the sky hope and change the reality of the Barry Hussein Soetoro has done just doesn’t match up to his promises. In my view it is a failure of government policy. In fairness, the Obama administration arrived in office facing some of the worst economic conditions in decades. But for more than two years this administration and it’s Congress has pursued policy after policy that...

Haley Barbour grossly exaggerated the nation’s job losses under President Barack Obama in a March 14 speech in Chicago. Speaking to the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the Republican governor of Mississippi urged his audience to look at the Obama administration’s record "in the last two years" on spending and job creation. Barbour, March 14: Well, let’s look at their record: in the last two years the federal government spent $7 trillion and our economy lost seven million jobs. I guess we ought to be glad they didn’t spend $12 trillion! Although not in Barbour’s prepared remarks, the New York Times...

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's press secretary resigned Monday after remarks he meant as jokes about earthquake-ravaged Japan and former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno became public. Dan Turner said Barbour never saw the jokes that were included in a daily e-mailed news digest. Turner said they should not be considered a reflection on whether Barbour, a likely candidate to run for the Republican nomination for president, is ready for a wider political scene than Mississippi's. SNIP The comments were parenthetical remarks about events from a website listing daily historic events. About Otis Redding's posthumous gold record for "(Sittin' on) The...

This past week, I've seen or read plenty of news analyses suggesting that the Republicans have a weak field of presidential hopefuls for 2012. Not so. I believe that many of the potential candidates who might seek the GOP nomination have strategically strong paths to the White House, assuming that President Obama is still vulnerable next year. Last week in this column, I put forth an explanation as to why Newt Gingrich is a stronger political force than many imagine. This week, let's consider the Republicans' other potential major candidates for the White House. For starters, there's Mitt Romney. Some...

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour thinks Iowans want a presidential candidate who’s not afraid to tell them the truth. One of the hard truths Barbour is willing to tell Iowans, he said during a visit to the Iowa Statehouse Feb. 21, is that farm subsidies have to be part of the discussion when it comes to reining in federal spending. That’s part of the “plain-spoken, common sense” he believes Iowans want to hear, Barbour said after meeting the Gov. Terry Branstad Monday. “Nothing can be off limits” when discussing how to bring federal spending under control, Barbour said. “Defense can’t be...

Governor of Mississippi Haley Barbour praises Islamic Relief, less than two weeks after the Israeli government labeled the group a Hamas front and deported Islamic Relief's head of Gaza operations, Ayaz Ali, for "funneling money" to Hamas. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKJIQs2eM44

After dazzling an audience of Washington insiders with a speech Wednesday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is the toast of the Republican Party, a political luminary whose star shines so brightly that no one actually believes him when he says unequivocally he’s not running for president. Yet to Steve Lonegan, Christie is just another hack — and a wildly overrated one at that. “He has been a big disappointment to conservatives in New Jersey,” said Lonegan, the former Bogota mayor who lost to Christie in the 2009 GOP primary but campaigned for him in the general election. Lonegan, now director...

JACKSON, Miss. – Does Haley Barbour have a Confederate problem? It's a question hounding Mississippi's Republican governor as he gears up for a possible 2012 presidential run.

Haley Barbour has been under fire for his stance on immigration after Time Magazine published a Justice Department filing showing that Barbour lobbied for amnesty.  The filings show that Barbour was part of a lobbying team that was commissioned by the Mexican embassy to lobby for a pathway to citizenship for illegals in 2001.  Here are some of the details about the amnesty provisions that he was seeking. At the time, Mexico was seeking an extension of a provision that allowed undocumented immigrants living in the United States to receive legal visas or green cards without returning to their country...

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour made the case Sunday on Fox News that his career as a high-powered federal lobbyist for domestic corporations and foreign governments would be an asset if he ran for President in 2012. (excerpt) Barbour may be eager to showcase his record, but one of Barbour's foreign lobbying clients could cause him some troubles in the 2012 Republican primary, if he decides to run. According to a State Department filing by Barbour's former lobbying firm, The Embassy of Mexico decided to retain Barbour's services on August 15, 2001, to work on, among other things, legislation that would...

What Haley Barbour didn't tell Fox News: he lobbied for Mexico on 'amnesty' By: Time Magazine's Michael Scherer Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour made the case Sunday on Fox News that his career as a high-powered federal lobbyist for domestic corporations and foreign governments would be an asset if he ran for President in 2012. Barbour may be eager to showcase his record, but one of Barbour's foreign lobbying clients could cause him some troubles in the 2012 Republican primary, if he decides to run. According to a State Department filing by Barbour's former lobbying firm, The Embassy of Mexico decided...