Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MI) said at CPAC today that Republicans have to keep in mind that the “average American agrees with us on the issues,” and “the main thing” Republicans have to accomplish it “electing a Republican President next year.”
Barbour told the AP and Huffington Post: “I’m thinking about running for president and I’ll make a decision in April,” he said. “And I’m serious when I say that I haven’t made a decision, but I’m trying to test the waters.”
But in his speech he made no mention of his possible presidential ambitions. Instead, he talked about how the Democrats are wrong on the economy: “Jobs are created by the private sector, not the government,” and that “our problem is not that we tax too little, but that we spend too much.”
He got some applause from the generally lethargic audience when he declared that Mississippi had been named “the safest place in America for an unborn child.”
Barbour continued: “The leftist media says the tea party is a problem for Republicans. This is a case of the left whispering past the graveyard.”
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.
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