https://redstate.com/dan_mclaughlin/2011/04/25/haley-barbour-not-running-for-president-in-2012/feed/Conservative News & Politicsen-usFri, 12 Jun 2026 06:10:07 -0400<![CDATA[If there is one thing we should have learned from the 2008 primary and general elections, to say nothing of 1996, it&#8217;s that being a good presidential candidate on paper is useless; you have to want it &#8211; want it badly enough to hire a serious staff, badly enough to trim a few positions and hard edges to fit the various demands of the primary and general electorates, badly enough to endure the most exhaustive efforts to tear apart your entire life for public entertainment, badly enough to spend endless weary hours fundraising and stumping in Iowa and New Hampshire and enduring crummy bus rides with grumpy reporters and town halls with cranks and half-wits and left-wing troublemakers. Your family needs to want it too &#8211; a man whose wife doesn&#8217;t want him to be president will not become president. It&#8217;s a big, life-consuming commitment, and you don&#8217;t do it halfway.]]>Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:51:09 -0400<![CDATA[Dan McLaughlin]]>https://redstate.com/dan_mclaughlin/2011/04/25/haley-barbour-not-running-for-president-in-2012-n38789