Lloyd Grove reads the tea leaves for 2012:

[A]lthough he is, by many measures, a successful politician, he’s governor of a tiny state (population: 2.9 million) that ranks last in such indices as median household income, academic achievement, and health care; and first in obesity, infant mortality, teen birthrate, and sexually transmitted diseases; and boasts a troubled and violent racial history that still shapes its identity.

And Barbour reinforces all the reasons the GOP has alienated so many independents: an anti-government party also up to its neck in corporate lobbyists; and a party so regionally fixated it is close to becoming a cultural, identity-politics ghetto rather than a national party offering national policy proposals. Barbour simply isn't presidential material. And at this rate, the GOP debates will be the worst advertizing and branding the party will get since … Bobby Jindal responded to Barack Obama.

(Photo: Republican Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi speaks during the final day of the American Conservative Union's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) February 12, 2011 in Washington, DC. By Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)