Talking up a GOP 'hottie' for '08 race

Newsday ^ | April 7, 2005 | James Pinkerton

[billorites]

The surprise victory of a "dark horse" in an early presidential test is a reminder that the 2008 election is under way, already producing surprises. Yet, there's a logic to the latest surprise.

According to the March 28 issue of U.S. News , the current "hottie" among Republican presidential hopefuls the Iowa caucuses, after all, are just 33 months away is Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi. And that was before Barbour won the "March Madness" online playoffs.

Those playoffs, free to anyone with an e-mail account, were conducted by a Missouri-based research firm. A total of 64 names everyone from John McCain to Elizabeth Dole to Rush Limbaugh - were pitted against each other, as in the basketball tournament, until one winner, Barbour, emerged on April 4.

This result, of course, was unscientific. But since when is politics a science? In fact, PR stunts are a proven part of the presidential process. Jimmy Carter won a series of straw polls in Iowa in 1975, even as rival candidates scoffed at these "meaningless" pseudo-events. But a year later Carter was the Democratic nominee.

Some Barbourites are actively tooting Haley's horn. Ed Rogers, a White House aide to Presidents Reagan and Bush 41 and a past campaigner for Bush 43, was Barbour's law partner until Barbour was elected governor in 2003. In talking up the Mississippian's credentials, Rogers recalls that Barbour was the political director of the Reagan White House before going on to chair the Republican National Committee when the GOP took over Congress in 1994. As governor, Rogers continues, Barbour has enacted sweeping tort reform and held the line on taxes and spending. "A lot of Washington Republicans seem to have forgotten the importance of fiscal discipline," Rogers adds, signaling the "outsider" edge of a possible Barbour candidacy.

[Al Simmons]

He needs to:

a. Lose 30 pounds

b. Start coloring his hair

This sounds very vapid, I know, but its (largely) all about HOW you come across on TV.

[WillRain]

To clarify...what i said about the poll was to you, what I said about the "looks" issue was to all those others who had been discussing it, not to you.

[Torie]

I know you don't want to miss this one. Who do I think will be the nominee? I don't have a clue.

[LibertarianInExile]

I assumed as much. I was just addressing the remainder of your post, not as if it were directed to me personally. No stress.

[onyx]

:)

At this point, I am clueless too.

[dixiechick2000]

"Anybody who picks the leader of the free world based on teeth deserves a secord Carter term"


LOL!

PLEASE...don't wish that on us. ;o)

There are plenty of folks on this
very thread who are interested in
nothing more than his looks, or
lack thereof...ITO.

BTW, I think he will be able to
charm the pants off of the red
states...and beyond.

Never misunderestimate the power of
a genuine Southern Gentleman.

[dixiechick2000]

"But...I think Haley's bulldog mug is part of his charm."


Big Ole Bump!

[Dan from Michigan]

As much as I hate to say it, I think Barbour would have a lot of problems in the Upper Midwest. Lobbyists are not held in high regard here at all, particulary among blue collar voters, which are needed to win. Now, I actually have no problem with lobbyists, but most people outisde of political junkies don't know anything about them.

Personally, I'd like to see Mark Sanford run. I think he can Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New Hampshire, as well as all the areas Bush won. Populists do well in the Upper Midwest, and with the spending problems and his term limit pledge, he has a good start to work with. He's good on life and guns as well, which is always a plus.

[gulfcoast6]

Isn't he lucky? Some want to talk about his teeth? Shoot, at least he has some, I sure don't and besides, his are the right kind to eat corn on the cob with.

[EQAndyBuzz]

"A Southerner has a built-in handicap when it comes to campaigning in the North. What is no problem Down South will become an object of ridicule Up North. Haley Barbour can be the most well spoken, well connected, well educated man since Thomas Jefferson, but those teeth will cost him five points in the polls anywhere more than 100 miles from a Stuckey's franchise."

We usually don't win in the NE anyway. Maybe this will help us in the Midwest though.

[AFPhys]

You have a tooth fetish - or are you just plain weird?

Even suggesting that a presidential campaign will turn on someone's teeth being perfect does your brain great disservice. Or is it that you are an orthodontist or cosmetologist trying to drum up business?

[gridlock]

You have a tooth fetish - or are you just plain weird?

I've been called worse...

But take a closer look, shall we...?

The two top front teeth protrude and show significant wear and discoloration. They have a gap and and uneven bottom line. Every cartoonist in the World is going to show those two babies with a piece of hay sticking out from between them. How could they not?

The adjacent tooth on his left (our right) shows yet another color, and is an obvious poorly matched cap. All the money this man has, and he can't afford competent dental work? I've seen temporary crowns that match better than that!

Two one hour sessions with a reasonably competent cosmetic dentist will eliminate all of these problems, for under $2500. Why would he not have this work done?

I am not a dentist, and not a tooth fetishist (if such a thing exists). But how could anyone not notice these choppers?

[JZelle]

[AFPhys]

Who cares, besides you? Sounds like you have a really weird fetish.

[WillRain]

Well, if you are only saying that the work could and should be done...sure - I agree.

I would be stunned if it did not happen and, BTW, he didn't lose a big chunk of weight...if in fact he decides to run.

I just take it as a no-brainer that you wax the car when you are trying to sell it. Hardly worth comment.