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Say you were a political party on the upswing, looking for the ideal candidate to defeat a president who had been elected on hope, change and the chance to make history.

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Probably not high on your list would be: 1) a former lobbyist who made millions carrying water for tobacco companies, the oil industry and foreign governments; 2) the governor of a state ranked at or near the bottom in pretty much every measure of its residents’ well-being; and 3) a beefy southerner who kept a confederate flag autographed by Jefferson Davis in his office and who has a Delta drawl as thick as Karo syrup.

Yet standing here in a pub called Sweet Fanny’s, draft beer in hand, were all three in one person.

“I’m Haley. I’m here because I’m seriously thinking of running for president,” he said to a couple of dozen GOP activists in this state whose first-in-the-nation caucuses are less than a year away. “If you’re not committed, I hope you’ll keep your powder dry and let me have a chance, if I decide to run in April, to compete for your support.”

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour can seem like a man from another time — out of step not only with the age of Barack Obama, but also with the era of the tea party movement. He is an insider’s insider — a backroom dealer, a trader of favors, a conservator of the establishment — at a moment when the Republican Party is in the grip of an insurgency against all three.

But however abundant Barbour’s liabilities are, he would enter the 2012 race as a credible contender, even a formidable one, in a GOP field that is the most wide open and unsettled it has been in half a century.

The former Republican National Committee chairman — and, yes, people call him Haley, like a one-name rock star — would start with a political network unmatched by any other potential GOP candidate, with the possible exception of former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.). Although Barbour barely registers in the polls, even among Republicans, it is hard to think of any other figure who could tap a deeper reservoir of affection and gratitude among the people who write the checks and run the party machinery.

Barbour’s admirers include many potential 2012 rivals, some of whom go back decades with him. “Probably one of the greatest political minds that is alive today,” said former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who is mulling over a second bid for the nomination.

And if there is anything in which Barbour has an unshakable faith, it is his power to bring around just about anyone.

Americans, he said confidently in an interview aboard his chartered jet, “have given hope a chance. They want to give results a chance.”

One of the clearest indications of his seriousness about running is that Barbour, famously fond of fine dining and Maker’s Mark, said he has dropped 20 pounds.

Not that he’s entirely happy with his new regimen. “How do you like this diet food?” he asked as he opened a plastic clamshell of grilled chicken salad. To his dismay, a vigilant aide had given him one with low-fat vinaigrette on the side — which he promptly offered to trade for someone else’s Caesar dressing.

Barbour was making his second swing through Iowa since a midterm election in which he could claim no small share of the credit for the Republicans’ success. As chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Barbour took up the slack as the dysfunctional Republican National Committee imploded, reached into his golden Rolodex and raised a record $115 million.

The result: six more GOP governors than before, and a more forbidding landscape for President Obama in 2012, given that Republicans have replaced eight swing-state Democrats. Not incidentally, the exercise burnished Barbour’s standing within the party.

It also raised eyebrows at home. Last year, the governor — barred by term limits from running for a third term — spent at least 175 days outside Mississippi, according to a Jackson Clarion-Ledger analysis of state records. It noted that his travels and the attendant security cost the state more than $300,000.

What makes some Republicans see presidential timber in the self-described “fat redneck” from Yazoo City, however, is not his political genius. It is his record as a governor who beat his state’s trial lawyers on tort reform, who lured industry, who balanced budgets. And more than anything else, it is the way Barbour took charge of resurrecting a state whose coastline was nearly wiped off the map by Hurricane Katrina during his second year in office.

“He did a fantastic job during the crisis — and that’s what we’re in, a crisis,” said former Iowa GOP chairman Ray Hoffmann, who has not committed his 2012 support to any possible candidate but held a dinner for Barbour at his Italian restaurant in Sioux City.

Perhaps because his Republican credentials are so unimpeachable, Barbour feels comfortable straying from party dogma in some areas. He is increasingly skeptical of the size of the U.S. force in Afghanistan, saying it is time to reconsider whether 100,000 troops are really necessary to hunt down a handful of al-Qaeda forces. And he says the party must cut defense spending.

What Barbour talks about most — and where he thinks his party needs to keep its focus — is on the economy and job creation. Lamenting that he has seen too much “root-canal Republicanism” in his time, the governor said Republicans must be clearer that spending cuts are a means to an end — economic growth — and not an end in and of themselves.

His two terms in Jackson, at least in Barbour’s telling, transformed him from a Beltway power player into a born-again outsider.

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Can Tim Pawlenty win?

Mr. Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, has become the first of the big-time Republican contenders to officially jump into the 2012 presidential campaign with an announcement on Facebook on Monday. The move to form an exploratory committee is almost a technicality for Mr. Pawlenty, who has been a candidate in almost every way for months.

But now that the Federal Election Commission considers him one, it will force a new discipline on his Minnesota-based campaign staff members, who have been steadily building a campaign since he left the governor’s mansion in January.

And the media will treat him differently, too. The profiles will be tougher. The questions will be more pointed. And the expectations among activists in Iowa and New Hampshire, the sites of the earliest presidential contests next year, will grow as they put Mr. Pawlenty through the political gantlet.

So what are the five biggest challenges for Mr. Pawlenty as he pursues the right to run against President Obama in 2012? The following is the consensus that emerged from discussions with Republican political consultants, many of whom declined to speak on the record because they advise — or hope to advise — one of Mr. Pawlenty’s rivals.

1. Money. The biggest challenge for Mr. Pawlenty will be raising the millions of dollars needed to demonstrate that he belongs in the top tier of candidates competing for the presidency. A man of modest means, Mr. Pawlenty comes from a state of modest means, without a financial center like New York, Boston, Chicago or Los Angeles.

By announcing early, Mr. Pawlenty is betting that he can raise the millions it could take to sustain a campaign past the summer, into the fall and through the contests next winter. But he’s not rich, like Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. He’s not a former lobbyist with a potentially lucrative Rolodex, like Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi. And he’s not preparing for a shoestring campaign like the one run in 2008 by Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas.

Starting Monday, he has about three months to make a big money push. On July 1, he will have to file a fund-raising report that will demonstrate whether he has succeeded.

2. Visibility. A new Washington Post poll suggests that few people know who Tim Pawlenty is. Nearly 60 percent said they had no opinion of the former governor, suggesting that the money he raises will need to be spent increasing his visibility. The name recognition challenge is not unlike the one faced by Mr. Romney, who spent months polling in the single digits during most of 2007.

3. Message. In the weeks since he left the governorship, Mr. Pawlenty has been road-testing a more conservative message that he hopes will appeal to Tea Party conservatives and establishment party officials alike. But as my colleague Jeff Zeleny pointed out earlier this month, Mr. Pawlenty runs the risk of trying to be all things to all people — and failing on all scores.

More than most of his potential rivals, Mr. Pawlenty has been aggressive in seizing on the issues of the day, whether that’s the union battles in Wisconsin or the budget fight in Washington. The sharp edge to his commentary has helped to swing attention his way but makes shaping a consistent message for the long term a bit more difficult.

4. Fiscal Discipline. Like Senator John McCain of Arizona in 2007, Mr. Pawlenty appears to be building an expensive campaign operation that will burn money at a steady clip now that he’s a candidate. It will take discipline to make sure that he’s not spending money he doesn’t have, on things that aren’t necessary. (Mr. McCain found out the hard way what happens when that discipline is lacking.)

5. Tactics. Of the three states that kick off the presidential nominating season, Iowa is likely to be the most friendly to Mr. Pawlenty, who is from a neighboring state. But his courtship of the state’s heavily evangelical primary voters could be complicated by Representative Michele Bachmann, also of Minnesota, and Mr. Huckabee, who will be aiming for the same audience.

And two other early states — New Hampshire and South Carolina — present challenges of their own for Mr. Pawlenty. In New Hampshire, he’s likely to face stiff opposition from Mr. Romney, who established a home base there in 2009. And South Carolina could be difficult for a Northerner like Mr. Pawlenty, especially if he has to face Mr. Barbour, a Southern governor, or Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker from neighboring Georgia.

The political map of the 2012 Republican primary campaign could be a difficult one for Mr. Pawlenty to navigate. Does he go all out in Iowa the way Mr. Romney did four years ago? And what happens if, as happened to Mr. Romney, someone else wins there instead? Those are all tactical questions that his campaign staff will have to confront now that he is running for president.

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7:07 p.m. | Updated As the Wisconsin public workers’ protests against Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to strip their collective bargaining rights stretches into its 17th day, national groups on both sides are launching air strikes. But neither side’s advertisements seem geared to help end the stalemate.

Republican National Committee
The Spot “Obama’s Union Bosses,” 30 seconds

Message “Barack Obama is preparing a billion dollar campaign,” the narrator begins, followed by text on the screen that reads, “2012: Year of the Billion Dollar Campaigns?” and “2008: Unions Spent $400 Million to Elect Obama.” As pictures of Mr. Obama and union protests flash across the screen, the narrator cites economic ills micro to macro.

“Obama and the union bosses are standing in the way of economic reform,” the narrator says, later adding, “They made this mess, let’s clean it up.”

Audience The ad is set to run in Madison and Milwaukee through Friday, said Kirsten Kukowski, a R.N.C. spokeswoman. (She did not respond to more specific questions about cost.) Wisconsin is only referenced obliquely, via a shot of a demonstrator’s sign depicting Mr. Walker with a Hitler mustache and a local headline about school closures due to walkouts. This spot, which has already been on the R.N.C.’s Web site for a week, is more about Pennsylvania Avenue 2012 than Madison 2011 – but Wisconsin is nonetheless a swing state.

Democracy for America/Progressive Change Campaign Committee
The Spot “Republican War on Working Families,” 60 seconds

Message Interspersed with shots of the protest outside the capitol are close shots of individuals, snow collecting in the folds of their clothes as they estimate the cuts to their income.

“This is Republican class warfare, an attack on the middle class,” says a woman identified as Kathleen Slamka, an electrician.

“I believe that the issues being discussed in Madison are not unique to Madison and the state of Wisconsin,” says Jeremiah Holden, an educator. “These are national issues. Money is being taken away from workers and the tax breaks given to major corporations.” (Mr. Walker recently signed bills that would let companies new to the state avoid taxes for two years and give credits for creating new jobs.)

Audience The liberal groups behind the ad originally spent $50,000 to produce and buy their initial set of airtime, which started today in Madison and Milwaukee and was to run through Friday on all the networks and some cable channels, including CNN and MSNBC. However, according aides for the groups, an online fund-raising campaign brought in an additional $125,000 over about seven hours on Wednesday, so they expected to expand the buy to include Green Bay and run through Sunday. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. has already been on the air in support of the public workers.

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From Today’s Times:

-  How much does it cost to extend the deadline for a government shutdown? $4 billion worth of new spending cuts, apparently. On Friday House Republicans proposed a stop-gap measure that Democrats said could be acceptable. Under the proposal, the law now keeping the government open would be extended another two weeks while House and Senate leaders try to negotiate a broader plan to fund the government at reduced levels, The Times’s Carl Hulse reports.

- As budget battles continue in states that are skirmishing with unions representing public-sector employees, The Times’s Michael Cooper and Michael Luo report that an analysis of recent Census data make it clear that there is no simple answer to the question of whether state workers are overpaid. The answer varies state by state, and job by job. The clearest pattern to emerge is an educational divide: workers without college degrees tend to do better on state payrolls, while workers with college degrees tend to do worse.

-  Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly told an audience of West Point cadets on Friday that it would be unwise for the United States to ever fight another war like Iraq or Afghanistan. He said the Army may find it difficult in the future to find inspiring work to retain its rising commanders as it fights for the money to keep large, heavy combat units in the field, The Times’s Thom Shanker reports. Mr. Gates says that the Army will have to reshape its budget, since potential conflicts in places like Asia or the Persian Gulf are more likely to be fought with air and sea power, rather than conventional forces.

-  President Obama’s administration is nothing if not historic. Adding to the list of groundbreaking firsts is the appointment of Jeremy Bernard as the first male and openly gay social secretary. Mr. Bernard, currently a senior adviser to the United States ambassador to France, is steeped in high-profile event planning. During the 2008 presidential campaign, he helped organize major fund-raising receptions in the Los Angeles area, including one with Oprah Winfrey, The Times’s Ashley Parker reports.

Weekly Addresses

-   The cold front that blew into Washington this week was inescapable – even President Obama’s weekly address was affected by it. “Freeze” was a recurring theme in today’s speech, but more so about the budget than the weather. “A freeze in annual domestic spending is just a start,” he said. Indeed; he outlined his plan to freeze annual domestic spending over the next five years by freezing the salaries of civil servants, cutting community action programs, cutting spending on defense, Medicare and Medicaid, and spending through tax breaks and loopholes. The only thing staying warm on Mr. Obama’s agenda is the investment in education and innovation needed to out-compete the rest of the world.

Washington Happenings:

-   Nearly 50 governors will be in town this weekend for the National Governors Winter Meeting, and they will dine with the President and First Lady in the White House on Sunday.

-  he 48th annual Washington Boat Show will set sail this weekend at the Washington Convention Center.

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From Today’s Times:

Still riding the wave from their midterm gains in November, Republicans are taking their electoral victories as a nod from Americans toward budget cuts on the state and national levels. But they may be at risk of overreaching and bringing upon themselves the wrath of independent voters in the next election, The Times’s Adam Nagourney and David M. Herszenhorn report.Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya … Wisconsin? President Obama got wrapped up in another protest last week when he commented on the state’s budget battle, and Republicans took to the Sunday talk shows to condemn him for it. The Times’s Jackie Calmes says Mr. Obama now finds himself in the middle of a new strategic battle as reports of the involvement of his grass-roots network swirl and critics tell him to mind his own business.The Obama administration on Sunday spoke out against the violence Libya has unleashed on peaceful protesters, responding to reports that hundreds have been injured and killed in recent days. But while United States pressure on Bahrain may have encouraged the withdrawal of troops there, it is unclear what effect this latest condemnation will have on Libya, The Times’s Eric Schmitt reports.

Around the Web:

Washington Happenings:

On Monday, Mount Vernon will celebrate the 279th birthday of George Washington. There will be a traditional wreath-laying ceremony at the first president’s tomb, followed by a singing of the national anthem by Caressa Cameron, last year’s Miss America, and a fife and drum performance. Arrive by 1:30 p.m., and you’ll be just in time for Mr. Washington’s surprise party — just like his surprise celebration in 1778 at Valley Forge. Admission is free.

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President Obama and his political rivals in Washington have jumped into the epic battle in Wisconsin between organized labor and the state’s newly elected Republican governor over the rights and benefits of state workers.

Efforts by Scott Walker, the state’s Republican governor, to slash collective-bargaining rights of public employees prompted days of protests at the state capitol by thousands of union workers, fueled and organized in part by Mr. Obama’s own political apparatus in Washington.

Even as Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin fled their own state in an attempt to stall a vote in the Republican-controlled state senate, Mr. Obama decried the tactics of Mr. Walker as “an assault on unions.”

That prompted House Speaker John Boehner to rip into Mr. Obama, accusing him of having “unleashed the Democratic National Committee to spread disinformation and confusion in Wisconsin.”

Mr. Boehner, in a statement, praised Mr. Walker and other Republican governors for making the tough decisions to cut spending. And he chided the president for siding with the wrong side in the contentious Wisconsin debate.

“Rather than shouting down those in office who speak honestly about the challenges we face, the president and his advisers should lead. Until they do, they are not focusing on jobs, and they are not listening to the American people who put them in power.”

The sharp-edged retorts from Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner reflect the broader debate in the nation’s capital as Democrats and Republicans dig in to rigid positions about spending, investment, the deficit and changes to entitlement programs.

In the next two weeks, Democrats and Republicans in Washington are set to play a game of chicken with the federal budget. The government’s authority to spend money runs out on March 4 and could force a shutdown in federal services unless the parties can agree on a new spending plan.

But despite recent calls for bipartisanship and promises to work together in Washington, the standoff in Wisconsin is a preview of how easily discussions could disintegrate into chaos.

For Mr. Boehner, the Wisconsin debate is another opportunity to preach a message of fiscal restraint in the face of demanding unions and government employees. Republican governors in several states, including Wisconsin, have said they must make drastic cuts to deal with huge budget problems.

By jumping quickly to condemn Mr. Obama’s comments, Mr. Boehner explicitly questioned the president’s leadership, suggesting he is unwilling to make the deep sacrifices necessary to put the country on the right fiscal path.

Other Republicans, too, see opportunity in the imagery coming out of Wisconsin. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is trying to head off a primary challenge from the Tea Party in his state, praised Mr. Walker and other Republican governors for making “tough choices” in their budgets.

“It is too bad that Washington Democrats are attacking them rather than following their lead,” Mr. Hatch said on Thursday. “President Obama’s comments today were, frankly, way off base. The only assault is from a bunch of self-interested government union employees who are putting their interests ahead of the interests of the Wisconsin taxpayers who have been funding their runaway spending.”

He added: “This is not the way public servants should behave.”

Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican chairman of the budget committee in the House, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison these days.”

For Mr. Obama and the Democrats, the Wisconsin debate provides an opportunity to stand by their supporters in organized labor in a part of the country that is likely to be an important battleground during the 2012 presidential election campaign.

It also allows Democrats to once again raise questions about Mr. Boehner’s willingness to see government jobs lost.

This week, Democrats seized on Mr. Boehner’s comment that if government jobs were lost because of the cuts that Republicans are calling for, then “so be it.” Democrats now view the situation in Wisconsin as another example of Mr. Boehner taking sides against workers.

Former Representative David Obey of Wisconsin on Thursday accused Mr. Walker of acting like Hosni Mubarak, the deposed president of Egypt, as protestors marched in the streets of Cairo.

“I think what Gov. Walker is trying to do amounts to political thuggery,” Mr. Obey told Talking Points Memo. “It is one thing to say that these are tough times — everybody’s got to cut back and public employees are going to have to take cuts like the rest of us … but he’s using it as an excuse to gut the ability of workers to organize and bargain collectively. In my view that’s outrageous.”

A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee declined to respond to Mr. Boehner’s accusation of spreading disinformation. But officials confirmed that Organizing for America, an arm of the party, has been “quietly, but significantly, involved in
building grassroots energy and organizing protests.”

The political efforts on behalf of the union workers in Wisconsin were undertaken at the direction of Tim Kaine, the D.N.C. chairman, according to officials at the party.

In addition to helping build crowds for two rallies in Madison this week, O.F.A. organized 15 “rapid-response phone banks” aimed at getting supporters to call state lawmakers. The effort covered 10 cities in Wisconsin, officials said.

Volunteer leaders of O.F.A. helped organize the rallies and youth leaders at college campuses brought buses to help transport people. Another O.F.A. program sought to get letters published in 23 targeted newspapers in Wisconsin. O.F.A. also used blogs, Facebook, Twitter and e-mail messages to rally opposition to Mr. Walker’s efforts.

Mr. Boehner, in his comments Thursday, said Mr. Obama should call a stop to those efforts.

“I urge the president to order the D.N.C. to suspend these tactics,” Mr. Boehner said. “This is not the way you begin an ‘adult conversation’ in America about solutions to the fiscal challenges that are destroying jobs in our country.”

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