He’s almost convincing as he eases back on a second floor porch swing of a Neshoba County Fair cabin as his southern drawl blends perfectly with a steel fan.

    He’s almost believable as he looks a few reporters in the eye and answers yet another question about his political future — particularly whether he’s eyeing a run for president — after his second term as governor ends next year.

Almost.

    Then he launches into a three-part plan for the country that takes about four minutes to complete. And immediately you know he’s given this a great deal more thought than even he’s willing to admit.

    It’s not the kind of information that just rolls off the tongue — not even for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.

    • “Fiscal sanity” — The governor said he would reduce federal spending by cutting every department of the U.S. government. “I’m talking about spending less than we did the previous year. Washington is where I spent a lot of my career. If they were going to have an 8 percent increase and that went to a 5 percent increase they liked to call that a 3 percent cut. I’m talking about real cuts.”

    Barbour pointed to the Obama budget as an example of poor spending. With ease, he pulled the $2.2 trillion the U.S. government is expected to bring in revenue this year. Then, he compared that to the $3.6-$3.8 trillion Obama spending plan. “You can’t run that very long … the average person here at the fair knows you can’t spend yourself rich.”

    • “Promote U.S. exports” — Barbour said the U.S. “ought to be seriously in the export business. That doesn’t mean protect against imports.” He went on to mention technology and energy as two areas where the U.S. could focus on exports. He also touted his record as governor where he said in the first five years of his leadership the state’s exports “more than doubled.”

    • “Get serious about producing more American energy” — The governor talked at length about his work at the state level to create a business environment where energy producers could thrive, particularly in the nuclear and coal markets. He said the U.S. must wean itself from other counties. “I doubt in my lifetime we’ll be energy independent but we can be far less reliant on foreign oil in particular.”

    To be fair, Barbour did say his focus is on the upcoming governor races across the country and not any potential political plans he might have past that.

    But I have to think that’s naïve to believe for a man who more than 8 years ago had a thick binder in his Washington lobbying office that read, “Mississippi 2003” — long before he announced his plans to run for governor.

    We know about the binder because Dave Dennis, the Mississippi businessman who has announced he will seek to replace Barbour in 2011, said he saw it during a visit to see Barbour in 2002. Dennis traveled to Washington that year to see if Barbour planned to run for governor in his home state. He did; Dennis backed out.

    Barbour, not known for always being politically correct, is staying neutral in the GOP gubernatorial primary in 2011. He has said he won’t endorse a candidate until after the primary. Some believe the primary will see Dennis face off against Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant.

    Whoever follows Barbour will have a tough task in matching his political power and popularity. In a Rasmussen poll released two weeks ago, Barbour’s approval rating was at 70 percent in Mississippi.

    That popularity was never more evident than at the Neshoba County Fair this past week. Theoretically, all eyes should have been on State Treasurer Tate Reeves, Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann and Bryant during the Thursday speeches under the Founder’s Square Pavilion. Everyone wanted to see what they planned to run for in 2011.

    The pavilion’s wooden church pew-style benches were completely filled by the time Reeves, the first to take the stage that morning, walked to the podium. But by the time Barbour was introduced about 30 minutes later, the crowd on the perimeter of the pavilion was shoulder-to-shoulder and packed under the shade to listen to the outgoing governor speak.

    Aside from his popularity, Barbour has been aggressive legislatively during his tenure as governor — not something that’s common under a system of government that has a weak governor.

    As we sat on the front porch a few hours after his speech on Thursday, Barbour said he was proud of his aggressive record.

    “Just because we have a constitutionally weak governor doesn’t mean that we have to have a governor with a weak constitution,” Barbour said. “I didn’t run for governor to be a caretaker; I ran for governor because I thought the state had some problems that had to be addressed. And I think that’s why I got elected.”

    Barbour pointed to budget deficits, lawsuit abuse and loss of jobs as three things he encountered in the state when he took office in 2003.

    “If the governor’s going to make a difference he has to be able to get the Legislature to go along at least on big things,” he said. “I’ve got a Democrat majority in both houses of the Legislature and yet we’ve been able to pass the most comprehensive tort reform bill in the country, and we went from a 20 percent budget deficit when I was elected to a balanced budget without raising anybody’s taxes in two years.”

    While he said he wouldn’t endorse a primary candidate, he did shed a little light on the type of leadership that he believes is needed to run the state.

    “I don’t think a sit tight, let the Legislature do whatever they think type of governor can do what the people want to be done,” he said. “Leadership is important ;174 people can’t lead. You cannot govern by committee.

    “At the end of the day somebody has to have the primary responsibility. Now, you need checks and balances, and obviously the Legislature has to appropriate money (they have constitutional authority) but somebody’s got to be in charge.”

    Few could argue that Barbour hasn’t been in charge of the state in the past seven years. His detractors would argue that he’s been too aggressive in wielding his political power.

    But now the question becomes will he seek more power past his tenure as Mississippi’s governor?

    While I’m not convinced that he will seek the presidency in 2012, there’s little doubt in my mind he’ll be somewhere in the mix.

    Fredie Carmichael is executive editor of The Meridian Star. He also hosts a weekly radio show on WMOX radio station 1010 A.M. — “Sunday Mornings with the Editor” — from 8 a.m.-10 a.m. E-mail him at editor@themeridianstar.com.