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Buddy Story
Haley Barbour and his wife Marsha in Biloxi. After Hurricane Katrina, the backslapping governor says, it's a time for "hitching up your britches."
(Susan Walsh -- AP)
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"Everyone knows Haley and everyone's got Haley stories," says Democratic strategist Bob Beckel, a former TV opponent of Barbour's who would become a drinking buddy.
Here's a Haley story: One night after a TV appearance in the 1990s, Beckel and Barbour repaired to the Old Ebbitt Grill, where a group of young Republicans began taunting Beckel. After a certain point, Barbour picked one of the young Republicans up by his shirt collar and backed him against a wall.
"That guy's my friend and you owe him an apology," Barbour insisted, according to Beckel, and the young Republican promptly obliged.
A Friend in Need
Katrina's aftermath offers a lesson in the benefits of having friends.
Specifically, the benefits of having Haley Barbour's friends -- most of whom have never met Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco.
Within hours of the storm, old friend Sam Adcock, the head lobbyist for European aerospace firm EADS, was sending five helicopters and a hospital airplane for Mississippi officials to use in recovery efforts. Another friend, lobbyist David O'Brien, was donating 100 satellite phones so the state's leaders could communicate while many of their counterparts in Louisiana were stuck with inoperable cell phones.
Barbour also received a call from A.D. "Pete" Correll, the CEO of timber giant Georgia-Pacific and a former lobbying client. Correll offered his firm's services to help salvage storm-damaged timber. He also agreed to reopen two Georgia-Pacific facilities in Mississippi, which will employ about 500 workers.
One of the striking images from President Bush's first post-Katrina visit to the Gulf Coast was of the president gravitating to Barbour. Barbour was RNC chairman when Bush was first elected governor of Texas, sat on Bush's presidential campaign exploratory committee and has strenuously avoided criticizing the Bush administration's response to Katrina.
"When he got to me he cried," Barbour says of his hug with Bush, in Mobile, Ala. "Tears just ran down his cheeks. It made me cry."
Barbour is not a starry-eyed idealist or a politician compelled to mention his religion at every chance. He generally eschews public self-reflection, the feel-your-pain deal. "I'm just not that kind of guy," he says, responding to a Barbara Walters-ish inquiry about whether Katrina has "changed" him.
But Barbour was clearly shaken by the storm. He kept saying, "Pray for us," says Republican lobbyist Ed Rogers, Barbour's longtime friend and business partner.
"We've never been 'pray for us' kind of guys."
