How Haley Barbour Can Win

Barbour defends comments on race, but is the damage done to his potential 2012 bid? (The Ticket)
Could Haley Barbour's comments on race doom his potential 2012 GOP presidential run before it even starts? On Tuesday, the Mississippi Governor sought to clarify his remarks to the Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson about growing up at the height of the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi. "I just don't remember it as being that bad," Barbour had told Ferguson, noting that his hometown, Yazoo City, Miss., wasn't at the flash point of racial tensions at the time. The Governor went on to credit ...

Why this will sink Haley Barbour in 2012
There is a school of thought that Haley Barbour's comments about life in the Civil Rights-era South and Yazoo City chapter of the White Citizens Council represent some kind of cunning, premeditated political strategy -- that the Mississippi Governor, in provoking the wrath of liberal commentators, is now poised to win over sympathetic Conservatives for a potential 2012 White House bid. As the New Republic's Jonathan Chait puts it: His past is not Racist enough to disqualify him, but it is murky ...

RE: Barbour's Baggage
As Adam notes, if Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour decides to run for president, he'll come with a lot of baggage. Some of it will be of his own making. A few Barbour's comments in the story Adam cites - a profile of Barbour in the Weekly Standard by Andrew Ferguson - are coming back to bite him. Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only municipality in Mississippi that managed to integrate the schools without violence. I asked Haley Barbour why h...

Couple of Thoughts on Haley Barbour and Watermelons
1. I've never gotten how "Watermelon" and "friend chicken" began to get treated as high-level Racial Slurs. Yes, they are slurs, as they stereotype and demean (and that is the point, and why I discourage their use here), but come on, they're not big-time capital-R Racist slurs. I categorize them in the same class as calling an Italian a spaghetti-bender or ravioli roller, well, a bit higher in offense than that because Italians aren't discriminated against that much and there is a greater allow...

Blog Buzz: The Barbour backlash
Ali Weinberg writes: Bloggers on the left and right responded to Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s statement today walking back his comments on the Civil Rights era. But the racial sensitivity at Barbour headquarters was suggested by an exchange between the Candidate and an aide who complained that there would be ''coons'' at a campaign stop at the State Fair. Embarrassed that a reporter heard this, Mr. Barbour warned that if the aide persisted in Racist remarks, he would be reincarnated as...

Haley Barbour, Take Two
Ben Smith of Politico finds an old comment from Haley Barbour that will, I suspect, come to define him: The context is a 1982 New York Times article on Barbour’s challenge that year to the octogenarian Incumbent Democratic Senator, John Stennis. The piece’s tone is almost sneering about Barbour — ” Mr. Barbour, now 34 years old, won renown as a High School Linebacker and as a dedicated attender of parties at the state university” — but this is the passage th...

Maddow Rips Haley Barbour Over Praising Segregationists (VIDEO)
In front of a live New York audience last night, Rachel Maddow took on Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's praising of Civil Rights-era segregationists in his state. "Haley Barbour wants to be president," Maddow said. "He also wants you to believe the Citizens Councils he grew up around in Mississippi were organizations of town leaders that smoothed the way for racial integration." "Who knows, maybe it will be Haley Barbour versus Barack Obama in 2012," she added. "Maybe the Republican Party will...

Haley Barbour clarifies comments on civil rights era
Too late? When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns’ integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn’t tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the ‘Citizens Council,’ is totally indefensible, as is segrega

Haley Barbour and the KKK in Yazoo City
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is out with a statement today walking back his friendly comments about the White Citizens Councils of the 1960s. Here it is via Politico:  When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns' integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn't tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should cons...

Haley Barbour: Citizens councils 'indefensible' - Jonathan Martin
Any misstep he makes — anything at all that can be portrayed as insensitive — will be pounced upon by an opposition that has much to gain by painting the portrait of an unreconstructed good ol' boy. Barbour’s comments in the Standard weren’t the first time he sought to defuse a race-related question by downplaying the issue. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset It’s the approach he took in April when he was asked by CNN’s Candy Crowley about Virginia's fa...

Haley Barbour Responds
Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns’ integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn’t tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the "Citiz...

Barbour's Racial Myopia.
It's a strange day at TAP when I find myself agreeing with Jim Geraghty : I stand by my earlier point that the bar for accusations of Racism has gotten dangerously low, and that Monday afternoon we saw a disturbing conveyor belt in which Barbour was compared to the worst villains of American history over a lone comment that suggests historical inaccuracy and gauzy hometown sentimentalism, not a deep-rooted hatred or a belief in one group of Americans’ inferiority. Neither inaccuracy nor oblivi...

No, Haley Barbour is Not a Racist
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is being accused of being some sort of Jim Crow Racist for a comment he made during an interview with the Weekly Standard. “Because the business community wouldn’t stand for it,” he said. “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. . . .” You’ll have to follow the link above for the full quote. And if you read the entire article, you’ll no

The Obligatory Haley Barbour Racial Revisionism Racism Post
I doubt this is the kind of attention the folks at Weekly Standard had in mind. But readers should at least visit the scene of the alleged crime: "The Boy from Yazoo City." Folks might get a kick out this passage, for example: What role Yazoo City’s segregationist past might play in Barbour’s Presidential Campaign is hard to say. It could become an issue, particularly for Washington political reporters who enjoy moralizing about race and public education while sending their own chil...

Haley Barbour's race blinders
Despite his just-released statement of contrition, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) has a blind spot the size of the Confederate Flag when it comes to race. I'm not saying that this son of the South is a Racist. I am saying that, for the second time this year, Barbour has displayed a stunning lack of insight, knowledge or even sensitivity to the role race played and continues to play in his own backyard. Note that I said this year. Greg Sargent yesterday pointed to some of Barbour's race missteps fr...

Discussing Civil Rights Era, a Governor Is Criticized
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR NYT WASHINGTON — In an interview that set off a new round of debate on Monday about racial attitudes and politics, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a potential Republican Presidential Candidate, recalled the 1960s Civil Rights struggle in his hometown, Yazoo City, saying, “I just don’t remember it as being that bad.” In a profile published Monday in The Weekly Standard, Mr. Barbour also talked about the White Citizens’ Councils of the late 1960s, which o

Possible 2012 presidential candidate Barbour clarifies civil rights remark
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who may seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, went into damage control mode Tuesday because of remarks he made about the 1960s Civil Rights movement in his state. A profile of Barbour in a conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard, included comments from him about what life was like growing up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. “I just don’t remember it as being that bad,” Barbour said. The ...

Gov. Haley Barbour Realizes He Made a Big Mistake
From the “Saw This Coming” department: Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is desperately trying to walk back his statements defending the segregationist White Citizens’ Councils: Barbour clarifies: Citizens councils ‘indefensible’. When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns’ integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn’t tolerate it and he...

Yeah, About Haley Barbour....
I stood up for him yesterday but the feeding frenzy went into overdrive and someone sent Politico a quote from a 1982 NY Times story on Haley Barbour's run for Senate that year. But the racial sensitivity at Barbour headquarters was suggested by an exchange between the Candidate and an aide who complained that there would be ''coons'' at a campaign stop at the State Fair. Embarrassed that a reporter heard this, Mr. Barbour warned that if the aide persisted in Racist remarks, he would be reincar...

Haley Barbour Wisely Decides to Temper His Appreciation of White Supremacist Group
Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images Slow news week or not, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's praise for his hometown's segregationist Citizens' Council in a Weekly Standard article released yesterday was bound to blow up in his face like a Fourth of July Fireworks mishap. Barbour, a prospective 2012 Presidential Candidate, has a history of racial tactlessness: He recalled the integration of his Alma Mater, Ole Miss, as a "very pleasant experience," while a Verna Bailey — a black classm...

Haley Barbour: 'The 'Citizens Council,' is totally indefensible, as is segregation.'
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour issues a statement about the recent Controversy: Dec. 21, 2010 GOV. BARBOUR’S STATEMENT REGARDING Weekly Standard ARTICLE “When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns’ integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn’t tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody shoul...

No More Mister Nice Blog
DOES THIS END BARBOUR'S PRESIDENTIAL BID? NAHHH. FAR FROM IT. In comments to my first Haley Barbour post yesterday, mb wrote: I think this will sink any (small) chance Barbour had of mounting a serious challenge for the GOP nomination. I've been inclined to believe him -- the point of my post was that the Beltway, confronted with the sort of racial insensitivity Barbour displayed, feels compelled to take it seriously, though not all that seriously. Especially in the case of an admired insider, ...

A note to conservative commenters | Michael Tomasky
Friends, trust me on this. You are doing yourselves no credit trying to explain Haley Barbour's comments away. I say this as your friend who is grateful for your participation in our conversation. You look ridiculous. The Citizens Councils were Racist outfits. Haley Barbour is defending them. They may not have burned crosses and bombed churches, but they did exist to support and help enforce segregation and prevent, as they would have put it, "mongrelization." Why defend this? Why defend someon...

Barbour Clarifies Comments on Integration
By Danny Yadron Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, an oft-mentioned presidential hopeful, today offered what he called a clarification of statements on race and integration he made to the Weekly Standard. Mr. Barbour caught a lot of flack for his comments to the magazine about growing up in the South during the Civil Rights era. His clarification walks back from some of those comments and calls citizens’ councils, local groups used to block integration, “totally indefensible.”  In the ..

Barbour walks back comments on civil rights era
After coming under fire yesterday for his remarks about the Civil Rights movement, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has issued a statement to clarify his recollections of "Citizens Council" groups and segregation in the South. “When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns’ integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn’t tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. M...