Haley, We Hardly Knew Ya

Agreed.  Nate Silver has it right over at FiveThirtyEight.  The news about Haley Barbour not running for President is for the most part, irrelevant.

But, there is so much we will be missing:

There was also the potential for problems with independent voters. Mr. Barbour, as a 63-year-old white Southerner who began his career as a lobbyist and who had some history of making racially insensitive remarks, seemed to conform to every stereotype that swing voters negatively associate with Republicans. Even in Mississippi, Mr. Barbour’s margins had not been overwhelming; he won election with 53 percent of the vote in 2003 and re-election with 58 percent in 2007 — a solid showing but none one that speaks to preternatural political talent.

Downplaying the fact that this year's Virginia’s Confederate History Month made no mention of slavery. The cover story in the Weekly Standard late last year where he defended the White Citizens' Councils and claimed amnesia regarding what it was like to grow up in the Mississippi of the civil rights era. His plan to pardon two African-American sisters he released from prison earlier this year on condition one donate a kidney to another, and then his recent back-tracking.

But I was looking forward to the vision of Haley Barbour walking the snowy streets of Iowa and New Hampshire in the dead of winter in search of votes. Can anyone say, "culture clash?"