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Mississippi Governor A Frank, at-Length Discussion about his Career, Katrina Recovery, and the Impact of Illegal Immigration. Part One of Two By Perry Hicks- Special to GulfCoastNews.com 6/4/07 GCN It may have been a circuitous route to political power, but in 2004, Haley Reeves Barbour finally came to elected office as Mississippi’s second Republican governor since Reconstruction. Barbour’s entire career has repeatedly placed him at the very center of historic change. His crossover to the Republican Party in 1968, along with other future key leaders like Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, broke the Democrat’s hold on the “Solid South.” He then went on to run Mississippi’s 1970 Census; s shock to many as he was only 22 years old. In 1982, Barbour ran against Democrat incumbent John Stennis for his seat in the U.S. Senate. The wisdom of challenging Stennis may have been questionable as Barbour’s defeat was virtually assured. Still, Barbour was propelled to the very center of the Reagan Revolution, serving in the White House as President Reagan’s political director for two years. In 1991, Barbour founded one of the most influential
lobbying firms in Washington; Barbour, Griffith & Rogers. In 1994, he
became Chairman of the Republican National Committee. On his watch as RNC chairman, the Republicans took control of both houses of Congress. This was the first time in 40 years the Republican Party had a majority of members in the House of Representatives. In 2005, Barbour’s leadership was tested when Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, made landfall on the western edge of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. The storm not only devastated the state’s 70 mile shore line, the eye wrecked severe damage as it arched its way northward across the entire length of the state. Barbour’s calm in this unprecedented emergency spared Mississippi the confusion that compounded the suffering in neighboring Louisiana. He was also quick to recognize that rebuilding was an opportunity to make the Coast an even better place than it had been before. By 2005, Mississippi no longer languished personal income-wise comparative to the other states in last place. However, the massive devastation wrought by Katrina pushed Mississippi back down at least temporarily. Governor Barbour’s efforts to bring new business into the state have set the stage for an unprecedented rise in manufacturing employment. Nissan, Toyota, GE, Rolls Royce, and Eurocopter have all named Mississippi as the site for either new, or expanded manufacturing operations. These announcements are important in that Mississippi, like the nation as a whole, cannot service its way to prosperity. Wealth must be produced by creating something new. These companies also bring in highly technical jobs and owing to their close proximity to Mississippi’s colleges and universities, a synergy is established that mutually benefits both. Regardless of how impressive his accomplishments, Barbour has not received universal acclaim. The Left has sought to diminish Barbour by insinuating that after Katrina Mississippi received preferential treatment from the Federal Government because President Bush and Barbour are personal friends. What the Left has failed to mention is the gross incompetence and even criminality exhibited by some sectors of Louisiana’s government. A Sept 17, 2005 Los Angles Times article reported that just prior to the storm, three Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness officials were awaiting trial for $60 million in missing or otherwise misused Federal funds. Two other officials had also been named as un-indicted co-conspirators. Lacking anything substantive to report, the mainstream media has treated Barbour with disdain, suggesting he is somehow tainted with sleaze by either leaving out or deemphasizing critical facts, or repeatedly making remarks about his person as if they were newsworthy. For example, the Left has made much about how Barbour lobbied on behalf of the tobacco industry and then later as governor opposing the unsupervised expenditure of state funds by the private sector organization, “Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi.” The partnership is headed by former Attorney General Mike Moore. What the Left leaves out is that the Partnership not only refused to be audited by the state, Moore himself created the organization after he, as attorney general for Mississippi, had settled a suit against the tobacco industry. Barbour’s position was that it was illegal for state funds to be expended without the legislature’s consent, much less oversight. The courts agreed with Barbour. Critics of The Partnership argued that Moore was using the multi-million dollar settlement to advance his personal political agenda. Dialog with Haley Barbour is easy. He has never lost his Mississippi accent; speaking for example like the way Country Superstar Faith Hill pronounces “time” as “tahme.” And Barbour, unlike most politicians, is able to stay on message without sounding scripted. He has a command of facts and figures and can deftly offer his analysis of them. The overall effect is that Barbour comes across not as a national leader, which he certainly is, but almost as a friend. One
on One with Governor Barbour GCN: There is a story about you recounting the time you and Griffin Norquist were sitting on the U.S. Capitol steps at twilight and looking out over the city and realizing how much power was there and how it could be used to help Mississippi. You mentioned to me previously that the subject of conversation over a book. Barbour: The book was the “Exercise of Power” written by Evans and Novak. Johnson was still president. That’s what set off the conversation about power and the use of power to help your home state. GCN: Your very remarkable career has taken you from working on a presidential campaign to running a census, to working in the White House and then a very successful lobbying career. Were you at one time a Democrat? Barbour: My family were Eastland Democrats. My grandfather and Senator Eastland’s father were very close friends. My father and my grandfather were both Democrats, but both of them died when I was very young; my father died when I was two years old. I grew up in a one party Mississippi. However, in 1965, my oldest brother came home from the Army a Goldwater Republican. I was in college, but in ‘68 he ran for mayor in Yazoo City, our home town. He was the first Republican mayor we ever had. But when he got ready to run, the Republicans didn’t have a line on the ballot. He had to qualify like an independent to get his name on the ballot because the Republicans didn’t have a line.
(Photo Left: Governor Barbour in Iraq visiting Mississippi troops) GCN: How did you land that? Barbour: You know, it was a pure political appointment back in those days; and I had worked in the ’68 campaign; and the state party chairman and the state party executive director, who had been there a long time, liked my work, asked me to volunteer and do stuff- I’d take time off from school to do an event or something- so in the fall of ’69 or the summer of ’69, they asked me if I would be willing to run the census. I thought it would be a great experience. I was going to law school, and grew up in a family of lawyers, I saw this as a chance to get some management experience- to actually run something- which lots of lawyers never do their career. So I took the job. More than 2500 people worked for the Census Bureau of Mississippi during the census, some of them worked a month or six weeks and some worked nine or ten months like I did. I worked on the census of population from late in the summer of ’69 thru June of ’70 when we wrapped up then they asked me to work on the census of agriculture and the census of business. So, I stayed on through the summer of ’70 and then went back to law school. GCN: That is quite an appointment for that young a man. Barbour: I think the Census Bureau people in Atlanta had a stroke when they found out some 22 year old was going to run the census. One of my congressional districts was the first one in the whole region to finish the census and it finished ahead of schedule and under budget. GCN: How did this fit in with your wanting to help Mississippi? Your career took you to the White House and then on to being a lobbyist. This path took you far away from Mississippi. All this time did you have in your mind you wanted to come back to Mississippi and work for the state or did you feel that while you were up there in Washington you were actually benefiting the state?
I would commute. Either I would come home- when at the White House- I came home every other week or my wife and children met me somewhere. By the time I was lobbying, I usually came home every week or they would come up to Washington for the summer. And then when I was Chairman of the Republican National Committee, again, it got to where I couldn’t come home every week but most weekends either I went to Yazoo City, Mississippi or my family met me somewhere. But we never lived in Washington, DC. (Photo Left: Governor and wife Marsha at "Smokin' the Sound Boat Race in Biloxi) As far as running, I ran for senator in 1982 when I was 35 against Stennis, and lost. I went to the White House not long thereafter. I actually decided that running for office was not something that I was as interested in because as political director at the White House I had more effect on things than most senators- not all senators- but most senators.; same way as chairman of the party. Chairman of one of the two political parties has a lot of influence on public policy, particularly if he is chairman of the party not in power- because if you are chairman of the party in power then you work for the White House. When I was political director of the White House, the RNC chairman worked for me. The White House didn’t tell him to do everything, but if the White House wanted something done I got it done. But while I was chairman and we didn’t have the White House, then that job is what you make out of it. We developed very good relationships with Republicans in the House, Republicans in the Senate, Republican governors and so that was a tremendous job with a lot of ability to influence public policy as well as to influence campaigns. At that point I really wasn’t thinking I would ever run for public office again. But in 2001 or so I told my partners that when I got to be 55 I was going to step down as CEO of the company and just cut back- I wasn’t going to retire but just cut back and not work 70 hour weeks and not do as much. Between when I told them that and as I approached 55, I became concerned about the direction of the state. So in 2002, I spent much of the year deciding whether to run for governor or not. Late in 2002 I decided that I would. Frankly it was because I thought the state was going backward. I never considered running for governor in the 90s- never gave it 30 seconds thought. But by 2001-2002 we’d lost our way.
(Photo Left: Governor Barbour reading to children at a Mississippi school) Barbour: As remarkable as it may seem, Katrina, the worst natural disaster in American history, has actually created huge opportunities for Mississippi. The reason I am running for reelection, I want to make sure we do everything we can to take advantage of these opportunities. There are opportunities for economic growth, for job creation, for strengthening our position for the economy in the future as well as now. Because of that we will see a prosperity that will give us a greatly improved quality of life and much more equity for all people than we have ever had. The economy in our state is extremely good partially because Katrina has caused all of this construction and reconstruction- the Coast is coming back bigger and better than ever. One little example, Harrah’s which is the largest casino company in the world, had two casinos on the Coast- one in Gulfport and one in Biloxi. They sold the one in Gulfport to some people who are making big improvements in it- part of it was just completely destroyed- and the people who bought it from Harrah’s are improving the quality greatly. So Harrah’s is focused on their property in Biloxi. This week they announced a three phase redevelopment in excess of a billion dollars in capital expenditure. The first phase is more than 700 million dollar Margaritaville Casino and Resort with Jimmy Buffet. Jimmy Buffet (musician) is a native Mississippian; went to college in Mississippi; he said the first time he ever got paid to play music was at Trader John’s in Biloxi on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The point of this is that both of those properties are coming back with much higher quality offerings and much more than just gaming. In fact, most of their improvements are non-gaming: Convention centers, theatres, golf courses, health clubs, spa’s, amenities that follow what’s happening in Las Vegas where you may know the majority of the profits come from the casinos in Las Vegas come from non-gaming. Nearly 60 percent of the profits is from other than gaming activities; shopping. Part of this deal with Harrah’s is a huge shopping concourse. That’s one little piece of the deal. I think we talked on the phone that Toyota announced in late February they are going to build their newest North American assembly plant in Mississippi. This is the most sought after economic development project in the United States this year. The premier automobile manufacturer in the world- some would say the premier manufacturer- chose to come to Mississippi. You know, Perry, when I was coming along, as a college boy and as a young lawyer, companies came to Mississippi looking for strong backs and low wages. Now companies are coming to Mississippi, like Toyota, for strong minds and are willing to pay for it. Within a few weeks of the Toyota announcement, PACAR- the Seattle based company that manufactures Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks, announced a 500 million dollar, 800 employee engine plant at Columbus, Mississippi. Last summer, General Electric announced a partnership
with Mississippi State and that they would build a manufacturing plant in
Mississippi. Later this month they’re gonna announce where that plant is
gonna be. It’s already published that the plant is gonna be in North Mississippi. The reason I mention it is that while it is only going to employ three or four hundred people, at the announcement last year, the vice chairman of the board of General Electric said that they would manufacture composite jet engine fan blades and assemblies. (Photo Right: Governor Barbour and President George Bush at a Post-Katrina meeting at Biloxi City Hall) Then he said, and this is the most important part, this is the most sophisticated manufacturing we do at General Electric. So here is again one of the premiere manufacturing companies in the world, taking the most sophisticated manufacturing, and choosing for it to be done by Mississippi’s workforce. That’s an enormous change from even twenty years ago. That is part of what I have been working for: Continue to improve the quality of our workforce. The first year I was governor we started to work on this; the second year we more than doubled what we spent on workforce development job training, and the year after next we will have tripled what we spend on workforce development job training. GCN: What is your vision for the Coast? Certainly Biloxi has the potential to leap past New Orleans as the star city of the region. Barbour: Like the whole of Mississippi, the Gulf Coast has a more diverse economy than what people realize: Very significant ship building. Of course the largest employer in the state is Northrop Grumman- ship builder- employs 12 thousand and builds essentially for the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, and military foreign sales. But there are a number of other shipbuilders on the Coast- Trinity Yacht, U.S. Marine, Edison West. There is a lot of manufacturing on the Coast; Chevron’s biggest refinery in North America at Pascagoula, Mississippi. They have announced that they are going to expand it from 330 thousand barrels a day to 550 thousand barrels a day. You also have companies like DuPont, Siemens Composites; we also announced last week that PSL, an Indian company- East Indians, not Native American Indians- but PSL is gonna build their first plant in North America because the largest steel company in India are gonna build a plant in Hancock County, employ 300 people, and they will manufacture spiral weld steel pipe for the oil and gas industry diameters 2 1/2 feet to 5 feet in diameter. That is very heavy manufacturing. At the same time, Stennis Space Center in Hancock County has a lot of very high technology businesses and just announced last week that a new generation of rocket engines is going to be tested at Stennis which is a project that will last from 20 to 30 years. A lot of people don’t realize that you have this diversity in the economy on the Coast and we haven’t said a word about gaming which employs more than 15 thousand people on the Coast- and it will be more than 20 thousand before you know it and I think it will be approaching 25 thousand in the next three years. The Coast has manufacturing, high technology, strong
government and defense as well as the hospitality industry and we are
making progress in all that. (Photo Right: Governor Barbour signing Wind-Pool Bill to lower insurance for Coast residents.) The other big thing about looking at the Coast: You set the economics aside, how should the Coast rebuild? Our Coast didn’t have Condominiums all up and down the beach like Florida or Alabama. People out here had chosen not to do that. After the storm, I set up the Governor’s Commission for Recovery Rebuilding and Renewal, and I ‘em your job is not to tell the Coast how to rebuild. Your job is to illuminate for the people on the Coast what their options are; to understand the alternatives. I tell you this, Perry; I have been asked that if in ten years the Coast will be back like it was, but I say that if in ten years the Coast is like it was, then we will have failed. We’re gonna build the Coast back like it can be. But we are not going to force decisions down the throats of the people on the Coast. We have given them lots of vision, lots of alternatives and those eleven towns on the Coast, some of them have chosen different directions from the others. Biloxi has become a huge entertainment Mecca, probably be more high rise condominiums in Biloxi than in most of the other towns. And that is important to me that Coast people get to choose; it’s critical that they get to see what the Coast could be and have that in their mind as well as what the Coast has been so they can pick what they think is best. In Part Two, Governor Barbour addresses the issues of local government forgiveness of emergency loans, tax revenue, the difficulty in closing homeowner grants, impact of illegal immigration and more. About the Author.....
Contact the Author: arielsquarefour@hotmail.com
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And that is
really why I started to get involved in the Republican Party. I worked in
the ’68 campaign and ran 30 counties in Mississippi. Then you mentioned
that in ’69 and ’70 I was the state director for the census; I was 22
years old.
Barbour:
First of all, Perry, my family and I never lived in Washington. Even when
I was at the White House or when I was Chairman of the Republican National
Committee, we lived in Yazoo City, Mississippi. Both of my sons graduated
from high school in Yazoo City, Mississippi.
GCN:
Neither the White House nor the Party has articulated a vision for the
future since Reagan was in the White House and you were chairman. Atwater
had a vision and he propelled the party to new heights it had never seen
before. You are getting ready to run and owing to your popularity will
likely win. What is your vision for the future?
Perry Hicks
is the senior writer and Washington correspondent for GCN. He is a former Mississippi Coast resident and was a correspondent for the old
Gulfport Star Journal. He has appeared on Fox News Channel. Perry has also hosted his own radio talk show on the auto
industry with a mix of politics. Perry is a frequent contributor to
GCN writing on stories of national importance with local interests. His articles can be found in the