Not long ago, the governor smoked a cigar, came to bed and tried to kiss her, "and I almost threw up," Marsha says. "I had to go brush my teeth at 1 o'clock in the morning."
She yawns.
"This new job of mine is making me really tired," she says, insisting on a kiss from the gov before she heads to bed. She presses her finger to her lips and he obliges.
"Go ahead, smoke a cigar," she says, pouring herself a tumbler of Jack to go.
As Marsha turns to exit, the governor slaps her on the butt.
Finding His Way
Barbour is at his most spirited when discussing his home town, Yazoo City, a town of 14,000 about 40 miles northwest of Jackson. His neighbors included former agriculture secretary Mike Espy, the first black congressman from Mississippi since Reconstruction, and Willie Morris, the author and former editor of Harper's. Zig Ziglar, the inspirational speaker whom the Barbours greatly admire, also claims to be from Yazoo City, but Barbour contends that he's from Zeiglerville, "a suburb of Yazoo City."
"Haley comes off as this Washington guy but it's misleading" says Cochran, one of Barbour's closest friends. "Part of him will always be a homeboy. In accent, attitude and everything else."
Like most people who came of age in the South in the 1950s and '60s, Barbour, a seventh-generation Mississippian, is a child of Democrats. His father, who died when Haley was 2, was a prominent prosecutor.
But Barbour picked up some contrarian GOP notions growing up -- mainly from his Republican older brother, Jeppie, who would become the mayor of Yazoo City. Haley dropped out of the University of Mississippi and went to work on Richard Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968 (he eventually returned to Ole Miss for law school). He was named state director for the Census at 22, a patronage gig from his work on Nixon's campaign.
In 1982, at age 34, Barbour challenged Sen. John Stennis, the state's then-81-year-old Democratic godfather who was first elected to the Senate in 1947. The race offered a view into Barbour's competitiveness and, some would say, ruthlessness. He emphasized Stennis's age, hanging a banner at a county fair that wished Stennis a "Happy 81st birthday."
Barbour also coined a slogan, "A Candidate for the 80s" -- as opposed to, say, a "Candidate in his 80s." Barbour lost with 38 percent of the vote.
He contemplated other campaigns but wound up in more powerful jobs. "I realized that what I did in the White House was more powerful than 90 senators," says Barbour, who served as political director of the Reagan White House in 1985 and '86. Same with his stint as chairman of the Republican National Committee in the 1990s -- a period that included the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994.
Barbour's stint at the RNC gave him access to an elite group of corporate executives and wealthy donors, several of whom would become lobbying clients. He courted controversy at times. Barbour was called to testify before Congress about a financial arrangement with a Hong Kong businessman that helped a Republican "issues" group during his stint as party chairman. The Justice Department inquired into the matter (a three-judge appeals panel would rule that the arrangement was "not criminal").
He returned to his home state to run for governor in 2003 against incumbent Democrat Ronnie Musgrove. Bush, Cheney and Giuliani, among other friends, stumped for him. He raised $10.6 million in what was the most expensive race in Mississippi history (Musgrove raised $8.5 million). At one point, Barbour criticized Musgrove for supporting a 2001 referendum -- rejected by Mississippi voters -- that would have removed the image of the Confederate battle flag from the state flag. Barbour won with 53 percent of the vote, becoming Mississippi's second Republican governor since Reconstruction.
In retrospect, Barbour had prosaic goals for his first term. He mentions tort reform, balancing the state's budget and creating jobs. "Now it turns out my governorship is gonna turn on this deal," Barbour says, adding that if he could have foreseen Katrina, "I could have made a lot more money doing other things."
Back at the mansion late at night, Barbour becomes philosophical.
"You can't explain it to people unless you're in the arena," he says of what it's like to lead a state during a catastrophe. "All these people who are relying on you. And suddenly you've got to rise to that occasion." He closes his eyes, enunciating his words. He speaks of the importance of "hitching up your britches." That's what you do when you get knocked down: "Hitch up your britches." Like Mississippi did after the Civil War, after Reconstruction, after Camille in 1969.
Barbour's voice quiets to the tone of a bedtime story. He finishes off his sixth glass of wine. Another visit to the devastation looms in a few hours.
"We'll overcome Katrina," he vows, "just like she overwhelmed us.
"And with that, good night."
