>> haley barbour, best -- said i like sugar, whether it's in bourbon or pie.

joining me haley barbour, former chairman of the republican national commit.eince priebus, the current chair, and representative marsha blackburn who is the chair of the republican platform committee for this convention. mr. priebus, let me start with you. let's talk about the weather first. you canceled tomorrow's activities. is there a chance you may have to cancel the rest of this thing? >> no, we're 100% on, bob. we have to put the safety of our delegates and guests first. you know, some of the background here was that we know these tropical storm or hurricane is far off the coast of tampa, so it's not a terribly hazardous situation, except we couldn't be assured that the buses coming across the bridges out to clearwater and st. pete would be safe with driving wind and rain. the second piece was the secret service took out all the tenting outside of the forum, so what that meant was fewer entrances, and our guests and delegates would be waiting outside in the driving rain. the last thing is, obviously, you can't be assured what would happen on monday if yo

haley barbour, it still lingered.bout this because of the issues of rape, abortion, contraception, are controversial ones, hot button and tough for the republican party. uchld rather, as was mentioned here, de-emphasize it. how then does ann romney, mitt romney, and paul ryan at this point, change the conversation and literally turn the page and get away from this? is it going to be that easy. >> as long as the liberal media won't talk about nothing else, it's very hard. >> hold on a second. >> liberal media like the republican party leaders? >> we need to make this election about the issues the american people are concerned about at the dinner table. if we do that, most people watching this show never heard of todd akin. i never heard of todd akin until he won the nomination. what the american people want this election to be about, policies and the conditions of this country and if we all talk about that, that's the best thing that can be for mitt romney and the worst thing for barack obama. >> has your candidate, mi

thank you, the letter haley barbour.next, we have a fox news to to better and perhaps future center, liz cheney. we appreciate you coming. host: "politico" playbook breakfast, we'll be back with them tomorrow morning, to hear what they are working on in tampa, but now "washington journal" continues with a live shot of the tampa bay forum, where the republican convention is unfolding this week. speeches begin at 7:00 p.m., and we will bring that live. let's go to our c-span studio and hear from mary ellen klas, the tallahassee bureau chief act "miami herald." mary ellen klas, did ann romney succeed in making her husband more personable, warmer and more acceptable to the american people last night? guest: i think she did a very good job. it was evident that last night's speech really energized the crowd. i was on the floor, standing around delegates who admittedly were enthusiastic about hearing her, but everyone expressed to me that sheet exceeded all expectations. she came across as genuine. she even had a little bit of

we see prominent figures in the republican party from karl rove to haley barbour saying mitt romney hass campaign has not done a good job offsetting these stereotypes being applied to him. you heard haley barbour saying many americans know he's a wealthy pluto adequate married to a known equestrian. some of the top minds expressing those concerns, i think they are legitimate, they are things the romney campaign has to worry about, however they're limited here. they're going to try to reroll out the candidate as every presidential campaign does at their convention. but they haven't shown an ability to personalize him. some of that probably comes back to him. it's a real challenge for hem and for his campaign. >> susan, a rich pluto adequate married to an equestrian? >> not the best description you want to be known as. they've had time. they did not change in the last eight years. so they probably could have done that. but you know what, i think they took a gamble saying, this is who this guy is, businessman, straightforward, he's not going to be mr. fun guy that you want to have a beer w

now political conventions are steeped in tradition, but former mississippi governor haley barbour is keeping up a tradition that's a bit unusual. he's been doing it for every convention for the past 24 years. governor barbour joins us. >> good evening, greta. >> greta: you have a tradition, i now know what it is, but i want you to tell the viewers here, because they're dying to know. >> since the '88 conventions, i wear black tennis shoes, i call them my dress reeboks. nobody notices. they think i have on reg black dress shoes. i've worn them for 24 years. i neveyou stand up all day. this is something that i do. >> greta: is it good luck? is it superstition in or is it just comfortable? >> it's old age. it's comfortable. i tell you, it's comfortable. it is less uncomfortable. >> greta: all right, good. fair enough. i think it's a good idea. all right, something else you said recently, you said that governor romney can pull a ronald reagan here at this convention. what do you mean by that and what does he do to pull a ronald reagan? >> this is my 12th presidential campaign. i was aroun

former mississippi governor haley barbour is about to stop by. >> we'll find out what he would like tot romney tonight. you are watching "cbs this morning." >>> this portion of "cbs this morning" sponsored by the makers of zyrtec. zyrtec, love the air. stashes nu, you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® liquid gels. nothing starts working faster than zyrtec® at relieving your allergy symptoms for 24 hours. zyrtec®. love the air. at relieving your allergy symptoms for 24 hours. it's time to live... wider awake. only the beautyrest recharge sleep system combines the comfort of aircool memory foam layered on top of beautyrest pocketed coils to promote proper sleeping posture all night long. the revolutionary recharge sleep system from beautyrest... it's you, fully charged. receive up to a $300 beautyrest visa prepaid card when you buy select beautyrest mattress sets. [ wife ] your dad's really giving him the business... the designated hitter's the best thing to happen to baseball! but it's not the same game! [ wife ] wow, he's really gonna get us a good deal. it's better! no it

people may not remember this, but haley barbour's good friend -- there i am.television. >> we all have that. >> the mississippi delegation was the key. there was a real tug-of-war going over where they would go, would they go to gerald ford or ronald reagan. there were more probably inclined for ronald reagan but clark reid, who i hope may be watching today, in fact, he's still there in mississippi and he decided they would go with president ford and that made the difference, and president ford got the nomination. very strong challenge from president reagan. in 1980, we had another kind of unscripted moment which was that ronald reagan was trying to get vice presidential candidate and jerry ford was at the bargaining table with him for most of that night. people forget that. people also have to remember that in 1980, in new york, it was teddy kennedy and jimmy carter in an unscripted moment. teddy was not going to get the nomination but was still going to be a big player on the convention floor and he gave one of the great memorable speeches. >> the dream will

that comment from haley barbour i thought was kind of stinging this morning on the day the conventiont is now speaking at the dnc. we just got a little bit of information about who used to work for charlie crist and it's a lot of current romney staffers, including andrea saul. does it hurt to have high profile republicans either questioning or leaving the party as mitt romney is its nominee? >> well, it certainly doesn't help. let's start with that basic premise. mitt romney is coming into tampa and you can see there's a whole hub or actually not, of activity behind me. really with the least amount of enthusiasm of any candidate in modern times. and paul ryan, by picking paul ryan, he didn't really do that much to juice up the enthusiasm the way that mccain did with sarah palin, at least initially. if you go back and think about the barack obama entrance into denver and how he stormed his way into there, he was not only captivating democrats, the whole country was just amazed and interested in barack obama. here, you really see the culmination of kind of a shotgun wedding that was fin

we'll hear from former florida governor jeb bush and former rnc chairman haley barbour. plus, scott pelley, he's a busy guy these days, he'll talk about his interview with the navy seal who took part in the raid that killed osama bin laden and wrote a controversial book on it. >>> a brutal beating of a female driver by lapd cops. john miller will have details on that investigation and a evidence of a link between weight gain and extreme stress. all that coming up later on "cbs this morning." for now, that will do it for the morning news. on this thursday. appreciate you watching. as always, i'm terrell brown. take care everybody. we'll see you back here take care everybody. we'll see you back here tomorrow. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>> as it is this tropical storm this morning. what senate and in louisiana and mississippi. it's common acr

it's just the strategy, the strategy does seem to be working, and again, you have got to ask: haley barbourou have to ask why didn't romney put this to rest? he could do so in 10 minutes or less by putting out his tax returns. he has made the decision he is not going to. looks like it's not going to change. jonathan, good to check in with you this morning. thanks for being there. thanks for your good work at flipping politic. >> my pleasure. >> jonathan allen, senior washington correspondent for politico. we will come back, take a look at what some of you have to say on facebook and twitter this morning. [ ♪ theme music ♪ ] >> this is the bill press show. [ ♪ theme music ♪ ] >>oh really? >>"if you ever raise taxes on >>the rich, you're going to destroy our economy." not true! rich, chewy caramel rolled up in smooth milk chocolate. don't forget about that payroll meeting. rolo.get your smooth on. now in minis. what's my secret for sunday lunch? my little helpers... and 100% natural french's yellow mustard. it has zero calories for me, and a taste my family loves. you want to save money on ca

joining us this morning former mississippi governor haley barbour, a founding partner at bgr group.to you. >> thank you very much. glad to be with you. >> a lot of attention being paid to louisiana. we don't want to leave mississippi out of this because they are feeling the brunt of it too. the situation looks good in new orleans, but plaquemines looks tough. >> plaquemines is south of new orleans. for us we've had some storm surge because the rotation of the storm, counterclock wise, pushes that water up into the corner where louisiana and mississippi meet. but it's not been serious unless you're right there. this is a large storm in size. it is not a powerful storm. mostly a rain event. there will be some flooding in lower areas. there will be some roads that get covered. i suspect a month from now we'll look back and say that the biggest damage at least in my state is going to be damage to the crops. we've got a huge soybean crop out in the field. worth $17 a bushel and a big cotton crop. they've cut the corn, but those crops are out there. if they get 20 inches of rain on them,

we'll talk to haley barbour.t's the future for chris christie, coming up. >> i believe in america and her history. there is only one thing missing now. it takes leadership. it takes leadership you don't get from a poll. real leaders don't follow polls, real leaders change polls. [applause] [ angela ] endless shrimp is our most popular promotion at d lobster. there's so many choices. the guests come in and they're like yeah i want to try this shrimp and i want to try this kind. th wait for this all year long. [ male nouncer ] red lobster's endless shrimp is back, but only for a limited time, for just $14.99. try as much as u like any way you like, like new teriyaki grilled shrimp or new parmesan crusted shrimp, for just $14.99. [ angela ] creating an experience instd of just a meal that's endless shrimp. my name is angela trapp. i'm a server at red lobster and i sea food differently. martha: history in the making at the republican national convention. governor mitt romney officially became the party's nominee for

haley barbour, by the way, made similar comments later in the morning and had a very memorable line talkingampaign trying to portray romney as this exotic rich guy. he said they're trying to portray him as a wealthy bureaucratic who has the life as a known equestrian. that has defined romney all summer. >> i think i would have handled it differently. the x factor here, of course, is that we don't know what's in the tax returns and there are people -- >> that may be the issue. >> that may be the issue. in fairness to them, they have a more complete picture than all of us, who are on the sidelins s here, just commentating. >> once you were an operative before you got into the tv business as an operative, have you been surprised that the romney campaign basically allowed the obama folks to make this an issue half the summer? >> no. there's nothing mystifying about it. there's a simple rule to this. you just got close to it. if disclosure is worse than the problem you have from hiding them, then you must hide them. we now know -- we're far enough into the story where we have what, in the politi

. >> if ed rendell or bill clinton or mitt romney or mitch daniels or haley barbour had been president the last four years, you would not have the problem we have now. they are governors. they know how to cut budgets. what this country needs is somebody with that kind of experience instead of avoiding issues going in and putting the right policies in place. president obama's failed because he really is a wuss. >> let me just ask you both one final question. i just want one name out of both of you. who would you choose if you were mitt romney as your vp? let me start with you, governor sununu. >> ed rendell. >> governor rendell? >> i think i'd choose condoleezza rice. i think he's got some weaknesses in foreign affairs which he's demonstrated. she's a woman, african-american, it would be out of the box and she would energize a lot of voters. >> i completely agree. there was a little bubble about her a couple weeks ago. it went away. she ticks all the boxes if you're not romney. please come back. very entertaining. >> thanks. buy the book, buy the book. >> i bought it. i read it last nig

haley barbour had rules of picking vp. guy almost ran for president.it was a pretty good way to start. he had four rules for picking a vice president and they were do no harm. impact on the battleground, unit the the party and be bold. d is this a do no harm pick? >> we don't know that yet. it is a risky pick as everybody has said because it brings into play, brings into high relief if you will, the issue of entitlement reform and what paul ryan and romney have proposed on that front and it will make that debate much more visible, much more vigorous. it's going to be at the center of things for a while. >> every single politician i can think of that wanted to tackle entitlement reform during a campaign got their you know whats handed to them. bob kerry wanted to go generational warfare and was talked out of it in '92. bill clinton dogged bob dole on it and democrats lost control of congress because of it. >> that's right. don't touch medicare. you can improve it, but you can't do away with it and you can't increase premiums for seniors by $6,000 and yo

here's mitt romney requesting the welfare change along with jeb bush and mike huckabee and haley barbour, also tim pawlenty, jon huntsman, rick perry, mitch daniels. even sanford was on the list before he had his hike up the appalachian trail, by which i mean he went to argentina with his mistress. the romney campaign's big new ad, their big new campaign effort that they let reporters know about in advance because they want people to think this was a big deal, to let people know it was coming because they wanted to make a huge deal out of it, it's outrage over the obama administration doing what mitt romney and other republican governors asked them to do, which presumably they didn't find outrageous when they were concerned about it, but now they find it outrageous. they're feigning outrage in order to have something to talk about that is not mitt romney's tax returns. in this case, mitt romney is wheaton college, pretending for political purposes to be outraged about something they have done themselves, which they palpably do not find outrageous. if they did, they wouldn't have done it

and haley barbour in mississippi. some guys do well in these things. ray nagin didn't do well.s the trick to handle a hurricane? >> work with people, be on the ground, be on-site, make sure you're plugged in with local leaders in counties and cities throughout your state wherever this might happen. i think that's probably what governor jindal is doing right now and that's very important for him to be cog. we would stay in touch with local representatives, also our federal partners. whenever one of these storms came in it's important to have all hands on deck, have a real cooperative attitude, do what's right to protect your people. >> let me ask about the florida race for presidency. this state is in play. this state has a lot of seniors, they're nervous about medicare, they don't like it being changed. where's your feeling on that? we have a lot of minorities, not just cuban-americans but hispanics. how is that going to work come november? >> i think it's going to work well. probably one of the most diverse states in the country. i think being open to diversity is important. i

governor haley barbour is the former governor of mississippi and the former chairman of the republicanational committee. if the reaction is any indication, mitt romney has a big job ahead of him. because the bar is set so high from last night. how is he coming into the speech tonight to make the most memorable of the convention? we think is key to that? >> the challenger -- this is always the greatest opportunity and a great challenge. because the bar is always high. the incumbent president is in our living room every day. everybody says this will be the close good look that millions of americans haven't mitt romney. the bar is high, but you know, i think it is keyed up very well for him. from his wife's speech, paul ryan, condoleezza rice before him, all the speeches we have seen make people understand that mitt romney and paul ryan are serious. they are bright. they are not willing to gloss over things. they are truth tellers. that is what the american people want. someone that will tell them the truth and deal with the problems the country faces. jenna: one of the questions we posed

i can see haley barbour standing by the guam delegation.starting to make their way down here. there's guys in the west virginia delegation wearing coal miner hats. you can sense the excitement that is starting to build with this convention really getting started in earnest. my since of it is when i was over there by the main delegation the ron paul folks were fired up. they are upset about what's happening here. they don't have the votes. they don't have the support. mitt romney does. at the end of the day they're not going to win this battle. that doesn't stop ron paul. it hasn't stopped him before. >> jim thank you so much. we'll be dipping in and out as this convention is under way. this full full day there at the convention center. >>> another man getting plenty of attention at the rnc is chris christie. keynote spoker tonight. he's going to be sharing the spotlight with the hopeful first lady, ann romney. we're watching isaac. now officially a category 1 hurricane. rain, high winds. take a look at the radar. they are reaching the coast

haley barbour.lag in his office and said segregation during the civil rights movement wasn't that bad. now, he's the romney surrogate on race relations. these comments are not coincidental. as the "new york times" reported this weekend, mitt romney is heading into his nominating convention with his advisers convinced he needs a more combative footing against president obama in order to appeal to white working class voters. makes sense, doesn't it? romney is actually no stranger to portraying president obama as a foreign menace and someone who hasn't had the white american interest at heart. >> sometimes i just don't think that president obama understands america. >> we have on one side a president who wants to transform america into a european style nation. and you have on the other hand, someone like myself, who wants to turn around america and keep america america with the principles that make us the greatest nation on earth. >> i watched today a president who i don't think understands america. >>

>> if you've got the money pulled out -- there's an old rule from haley barbour, republican from mississippiresidency you win senate races and also governors races. to build on those campaign structures, to be able to win the presidency. when you have a u.s. senate race and that senate candidate is now flailing about, embarrassing, you have the national publican senatorial committee not putting money in. karl rove saying his group won't put money in. that's more money that the party and the presidential campaign had to spend in a state they could spend elsewhere. it drags down the presidential ticket and others on the ballot as well. >> and more than that too. >> let me suggest a different problem here. missouri seems pretty safe with or without akin on the ballot for mitt romney. certainly the issue of senate control is at risk if he stays on the ballot, because obviously claire mccaskill is more competitive. but one thing that has held strong for obama is his support among college educated white women. he won 52% last time. he is polling at least that well this time at 60% or more in some

haley barbour has had to deal with a lot of hurricanes in his lifetime, including in 2008, at the start of the g.o.p., when gustav hit the gulf. he has his predictions on how this could play out and what the latest polls do or don't mean about the race. >> thank you, shannon. >> shannon: your thought, the start of the g.o.p. convention and a storm moving into the gulf. huto deal with gustav, how does it impact things? >> if you saw the screen today, this storm will go well to the west of tampa. but hurricanes rotate counterclockwise so the bad winds and the drerchg rain will be to the east. that's why these party leaders have been prudent and said, we are not going to take a chance, first of all, this is a an 80-mile-per-hour event, which is not a big hurricane. but you can't drive buses over bridges when the winds are 40 miles per hour. the tenting will have to be taken down with 60- or 70-mile-per-hour winds, so that would have 20,000 people waiting to get into the hall, and get drenched. it is not because there will be a catastrophe, but it is prudent. even on the gulf coast; this co