Miss. State Prof Suggests Palin-Barbour Ticket

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Mississippi State University political science professor Marty Wiseman proposed a presidential ticket of Sarah Palin and Haley Barbour Monday, according to a Starkville Daily News report . Speaking before the Starkville Rotary Club, Wiseman, who is also director of MSU's John C. Stennis Institute of Government, says that Barbour would bring "gravitas" to a Palin presidential bid as her running mate.

The professor explained why teaming up with Sarah Palin would be a smart move for Barbour. Although Mississippi's two-term governor is held in "by far the highest standing among Republican governors," it might in the best interests of his political career to seek higher office in 2012:

As Mississippi’s seated governor, Barbour is grappling with a budget shortfall Wiseman says officials project will reach upwards of $1 billion over the next 12 to 24 months.

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"The state of Mississippi is in dire straits," Wiseman told the audience. "There are things that are very ominous about the situation."

Barbour has been widely acclaimed for the way he handled the devastation Hurricane Katrina wreaked on his state, and he has a record of success in working with a state legislature dominated by Democrats. He was also an effective chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1993 to 1997. In 1994, on his watch as RNC chair, the GOP captured both houses of the United States Congress, taking the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. Barbour took over the chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association in July of 2009.

On the minus side, the Mississippi governor's career as a lobbyist for clients including the tobacco industry would be an inviting avenue of attack for the Democrats, who would also attempt to paint Barbour as a racist, if for no other reason than he's white and from Mississippi. Practicing the politics of personal destruction is what Democrats do best.

Since this is all idle speculation anyway, let's look at a possible Palin-Barbour ticket. It would certainly have geographical balance. Although neither Palin nor Barbour has served as a legislator, they both have experience working with legislatures. Barbour is a lawyer, while Palin is not. As governors, neither has extensive foreign policy experience, but that was not a hindrance for George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan. Barbour's greatest asset for Sarah Palin, in addition to the "gravitas" factor, may be his connections to the Republican Party establishment. Although he's not considered to be a part of the GOP's Beltway Brass, Barbour's four-year stint as RNC chairman makes his voice one that Republican insiders respect. Barbour is classified as a "moderate conservative" according to OnTheIssues.com. The same organization scores Sarah Palin as a "populist-leaning" conservative, although she does have considerable support among libertarian Republicans.

In the final analysis, we don't think that a Palin-Barbour ticket is likely, but politics is one realm where stranger things can and often do happen. Although there's not a lot of warmth between Sarah Palin and Haley Barbour, such a political marriage of convenience would be no more unthinkable than JFK and LBJ or, for that matter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

- JP