Matthew Yglesias summarizes Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour‘s view of white citizens councils:
I think both what Barbour said and the context were pretty clear. In Mississippi in the 1950s and 60s most white people were white supremacists. And within the large and powerful white supremacist community, there was a split between more moderate and more radical factions. The moderates pursued a strategy of economic coercion and the radicals pursued a strategy of violence. There was also a small minority of white proponents of racial equality. In Barbour’s home town of Yazoo City, Mississippi the moderate faction of white supremacists had the upper hand. And Barbour thinks the strength of moderate white supremacists helped create a beneficial political atmosphere in his hometown.
That’s exactly right. And yet of the expected 2012 Republican slate Barbour is pretty much the only one talking like this about immigration to conservative audiences:
I don’t know where we would have been in Mississippi after Katrina if it hadn’t been with the Spanish speakers that came in to help rebuild. And there’s no doubt in my mind some of them were here illegally. Some of them were, some of them weren’t. But they came in, they looked for the work. If they hadn’t been there — if they hadn’t come and stayed for a few months or a couple years — we would be way, way, way behind where we are now.
[…]
My idea is everybody from Stanford who’s from India that gets a PhD, we oughta stamp citizenship on his diploma. So instead of him going back to India and starting a business that employs 1,800 people, then he’ll start a business that employs 1,800 people in Des Moines, Iowa, instead of India. A lot of it is just common sense. And common sense tell us we’re not going to take 10 or 12 or 14 million people and put them in jail or deport them. We’re not gonna do it, and we need to quit — some people need to quit acting like we are and let’s talk about real solutions.
So Barbour has some really messed up ideas about what the South was like in the 1960s. But on one of the most important race-related issues of his time, he’s more progressive than just about any other potential Republican presidential candidate.
This isn’t meant as a defense of Barbour, but judging by the above statement alone Barbour probably would have been a “yes” vote on the DREAM Act. The caveat of course, is that if he had been in the Senate he would have been pressed to join the Republican filibuster, whereas as a governor he’s not subject to that kind of pressure.
