Politics > Katrina Poses Challenges for Barbour

Hurricane Katrina Hands Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour His Toughest Political Test

Inge Thornton washes her hair outside the home of James W. Pazz in Bay St. Louis, Miss., on Friday, Sept. 2 2005. Inge is one of the twenty people Pazz took in after their families lost their homes during Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Bags are newly prominent under his eyes. He fights tears while talking about search-and-rescue efforts. His voice cracks as he acknowledges people's fears about getting food, water, fuel and other basics for survival.

"Sometimes I'm scared too. But we're going to hitch up our britches and we're going to get this done," Barbour says in his thick-as-sorghum drawl.

Thrust into the national spotlight by one of the worst natural disasters in the nation's history, the first-term Republican governor faces the kind of challenge no politician ever anticipates or wants. Though the disaster is natural rather than manmade, it's similar in scale to what Rudolph Giuliani, then the mayor of New York, faced because of Sept. 11.

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato praises Barbour's response so far.

"He's come across as a Giuliani-type leader," Sabato said. "He's risen to the challenge and he clearly has the leadership gene."

But there are critics, particularly Jackson residents who are desperate for gasoline, and country folk still forced to scrounge for food and clean water in a world without electricity. And, there are those who say Barbour may have been too soft on early evacuation decisions.

In public appearances and nightly news programs, Barbour says repeatedly: "We will rebuild bigger and better than ever. It's going to take some time, and people have to be patient."

Even as Katrina whipped through the state Monday, Barbour took a tough stance against theft.

"To me looting is about the equivalent of grave robbing," he said. "We're not going to stand for it."

Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman and influential Washington lobbyist, unseated Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in 2003 by promising to use his own powerful contacts to help Mississippi. Months before Katrina, some Republican insiders started touting Barbour as possible 2008 presidential material.

On Friday, Barbour walked with President Bush through obliterated home sites and twisted trees along the coast. Bush decried the chaos in New Orleans and praised Barbour's tough stance against civil unrest.

"Haley made some clear rules and is following through on them," Bush said.

Marty Wiseman, a Mississippi State University political scientist, said he doesn't think Barbour would try to take advantage of the disaster to advance his political career. But Wiseman said: "This will give him the ultimate stage to perform on."

Barbour likens Mississippi's storm damage to Hiroshima. Along the 90-mile coastline, Katrina blasted away entire communities, shoved a hulking casino barge onto a beachside highway and toppled sections of two vital east-west bridges like dominoes.

State emergency workers say when no TV cameras are around, Barbour has paid early morning visits to Mississippi and Louisiana hurricane refugees at the coliseum in Jackson, just a few blocks from the Governor's Mansion.

Scott Hamilton, spokesman for the state economic-development agency, said Barbour asked him one day if he was tired. Hamilton said he was, and asked how the governor was holding up.

Hamilton said Barbour responded: "'I get tired, too, and when I do, I think about the people I'm doing this for and I'm re-energized.'"

The pressure on Barbour is intense. People along the coast and more than 100 miles inland are homeless, hungry and desperate for fuel and clean water.

Critics question whether Barbour emphasized evacuations strongly enough. Barbour says he's satisfied he did. Evacuation orders are made by local officials, and those were issued for the three coastal counties early Sunday, more than 24 hours before Katrina roared ashore.

Barbour said National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield called him Saturday night to warn that Katrina could rival Hurricane Camille, which devastated parts of the coast in 1969. Barbour said he told Mayfield to repeat that message relentlessly to the public.

Mississippi was already one of the poorest states, and a significant part of its economy is disrupted with most of the coast casinos destroyed and the shrimping and shipbuilding industries at least temporarily disabled. The state already struggles with a tight budget, and Barbour has fiercely opposed any tax increases. Democratic Rep. Steve Holland, a personal friend but frequent political foe of the governor, wants to know whether Barbour will soften that stance.

"This act of God has brought us to reality so there's no measure anymore for anybody's political philosophy," said Holland.

2005-09-03