Why Barbour Dropped Out

Politico reports:

Haley Barbour had his presidential announcement plan lined up: A May 2 launch, followed by a fly-around to Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada and Florida, before winding up in in Jackson on Saturday the 7th for a big home-state fundraising bash.

He had lined up a likely campaign manager. Rob Collins, a longtime GOP operative who had already traveled with the putative candidate in Florida earlier in the month and was preparing to move his family to Mississippi.

A major fundraising event in New York City was in the works for May, with some of the biggest names in the city’s politics working on preparations, and a rough budget was sketched out: $55 million for the primary with $35 million earmarked for the first five states.

Then he pulled the plug.

Surprising some of his own backers, Barbour revealed on a Monday afternoon conference call that he was not going to run. Asked by adviser Scott Reed, who led the call, if they had questions, none did. They were stunned.

Soon after, Barbour issued a five-paragraph press release explaining that he couldn’t offer with “total certainty” that he had the commitment to endure the crucible of a presidential campaign.

“I wouldn’t have signed up with him if I didn’t think he was going to run,” said Jim Dyke, who had been consulting on press strategy with the governor. “He was putting together an organization like he was going to run.”

“I was surprised,” added Collins. “Ultimately I think that while he knows we need a new president, he just didn’t think it was the right time for him.”

For weeks, the insider betting had been that he was a lock to get in the race. One of his closest advisers said that after talking to the governor following his trips earlier this month to South Carolina and New Hampshire, it seemed clear that a declaration was only a matter of when.

With next week’s announcement tour in the works and the New Hampshire leg of the trip already disclosed, his presidential campaign seemed a go.

But even as he was taking all the usual steps – calling donors, visiting early states, hiring operatives – there were signs that the Mississippian wasn’t all in.

As he traveled the country testing the waters over the last few months he had begun privately using the same phrase to describe his intense exploratory schedule: he called it his “death march,” a Republican who heard Barbour use the term recalled.

Barbour did it in light-hearted fashion, a way to break the tension, but the Republican who heard it found it revealing and wasn’t surprised when the Mississippian begged off.

A member of Barbour’s inner circle said the governor had also offered disclaimers in his conversations with advisers.

“Every time we had discussions, he’d emphasize that, ‘I’m not there yet and I might not get there,’” said this adviser.

And when he greeted voters during his travels, he was usually careful to say: “I’m thinking about running for president.”

That may seem formulaic, the customary semantics of the presidential game, but Barbour seemed to never veer from precisely that formulation— suggesting that he was truly only exploring the possibility.

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