They will try to destroy this man

Sarah Palin's reputation has been (unfairly) damaged by her opponents. Bobby Jindal is too young, and he has to run for re-election in 2011 (he can't very well run for president a few months later). Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are yesterday's news. Jon Huntsman and Tim Pawlenty suffer a severe name-recognition deficit.

So now that Mark Sanford's personal flaws have trumped any hope he might have harbored for the Big Chair, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has moved to the front of the line of Republican candidates to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012.

A normal American can look at Hurricane Katrina and see Mr. Barbour's effectiveness as an administrator: We heard much about the suffering of Louisianans during that time. Our knowledge of Mississippians' plight is far less robust.

This could be because Mr. Barbour is a competent governor (compared to Louisiana's Kathleen Blanco) who had an adequate response plan in place and intelligent officials running the show. Or, it could be that the thousand-mile-wide storm decided to spare Mississippians. How lucky.

Columnist Robert Novack described Democrats' thirst to beat Barbour in October, 2003. Even back then, Democrats knew what they were facing: Let this man win the governorship, they reasoned, and we might see him again further down the line.

They could not beat him then, and he was elected governor of Mississippi. (He beat an incumbent Democrat who had received the endorsement of the National Rifle Association.) And now we have the very real possibility that Democrats will have to face him again.

The casual observer might think of Mrs. Palin as the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. But the astute observer, I think, will see that Mr. Barbour is the man Democrats will have to beat.

As much as I detest the never-ending campaign that started in early 2005, and as much as I promised myself I would not be a party to it, I feel confident in betting on this much: In the coming months, we will see many news stories disparaging Haley Barbour's character. His accomplishments will be besmirched. His successes downplayed. His failures distorted, warped and magnified. We will see ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR and CNN -- not to mention the Democratic National Committee -- go to tremendous lengths to destroy this man.