Barbour holds lengthy meeting with advisers to discuss possible presidential run

[pbrower2a]

deep red                  Obama 10% margin or greater  
medium red              Obama, 5-9.9% margin  
pale red                   Obama, margin under 5%  
 
pale blue                  Barbour  under 5%
medium blue             Barbour  5-9.9% margin  
deep blue                 Barbour over 10%

light green    third-party conservative  -- no distinction

I figure that such states as Idaho, Utah, and Nebraska are conservative, but they are not going to vote for an outright racist. There would be a third-party conservative... maybe Pat Buchanan.

[pbrower2a]

Another problem for Barbour's national ambitions is the fact that he's pardoned a bunch of hardened criminals who did odds jobs around the governor's mansion:

http://www.slate.com/id/2238938/pagenum/all/

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In essence, kiss up and you get goodies from the Chief Executive -- even if it is a mitigation of a sentence of murder.