Haley Barbour's 2012 Problem.

I love Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour.

Name another individual that has cut state spending without taxation; that has passed necessary TORT reform in a state based upon the legal profession; that has proudly passed laws that have made their state the safest for the unborn in the entire United States of America.

You can't.

Barbour is the perfect GOP candidate. He can appeal to both the establishment (via his four years as Chairman of the RNC) and grassroots (via his eight years as Governor of Mississippi). No other candidate has that connection with both of the movements that constitute modern Conservatism.

However, the fact that he's from the South will hinder his campaign more than the two decades that he spent as a lobbyist in Washington. We saw this with his Weekly Standard interview/talk a couple of weeks ago - the media slaughtered him for defending Yahoo City's amazingly strong race record during the 1960's and 1970's.

And now the media is back for more.

The Mississippi branch of the Sons of Confederate Veterans are pushing for a commemorative license plate to recognize the service of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forest*, who founded the KKK after the Civil war. The liberal media is doing every thing possible to get Haley Barbour involved in this story.

Talk about a preview to the 2012 general election.

I absolutely love Haley Barbour, but unless I know that the American electorate will actually support a Southern man for the White House, I don't know whether to jump 100% onto the Barbour bandwagon, or to play it safe with Pawlenty.

What say you?

* - Forest was head of the Confederacy's greatest Calvary unit.