In 2003 Thad Cochran praised Haley Barbour for having the "Number 1 lobbying firm" in US. Politico: "In language unthinkable in the politics of 2014, Cochran spoke straight to the camera to hail Barbour’s prowess as a D.C. lobbyist." "I'm proud of Haley and you will be too."

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2003 ad: Thad Cochran praises Barbour's success as a lobbyist.

3/19/14, "The Barbour Gang rides to Thad Cochran’s rescue," Politico, Alexander Burns

"Haley Barbour said his wife was Cochran’s “first paid employee in his first campaign” for Congress in the early 1970s; when Barbour ran for governor three decades later, in 2003, Cochran gave him a critical boost with an ad calling Barbour a “Mississippi success story.”...

In language unthinkable in the politics of 2014, Cochran spoke straight to the camera to hail Barbour’s prowess as a D.C. lobbyist.

“He built the nation’s No. 1 lobbying firm, representing businesses that employ millions of Americans and helping fund universities and hospitals in Mississippi,” Cochran said in the ad. “I’m proud of Haley, and you will be, too.”

If Barbour owes Cochran something of a debt for that, he and his cohort are repaying it now with interest....

U.S. Chamber of Commerce strategist Scott Reed, who advised Haley Barbour on a possible 2012 presidential run, said the national business lobby intends to be “heavily involved” in the race. He described McDaniel as a “trial lawyer” (a label the challenger disputes) recruited by opportunistic groups on the right to take on a respected incumbent.

“We’ll be legally coordinating with our friends, the Barbours, and we plan to strip the bark off this guy,” Reed said. “The fact that the Barbour family is engaged at the level they are is reassuring, because these elections are often localized, and who better to have on the front lines of running your strategy than the former governor and the national committeeman who have more knowledge about the state than anyone else combined?”

In Mississippi, at least two former Barbour campaign spokesmen have landed senior roles in the Cochran-boosting operation. The chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, Joe Nosef, is a former Barbour campaign manager.

To candidates and strategists from this wing of the Republican Party, Barbour and Cochran look like two sides of the same deeply problematic coin, both of them icons of a Beltway-based Republican elite that would rather cut deals with Democrats to spend more public money
than rein in the size and power of the federal government. Some privately argue that Haley Barbour also tarnished his standing as a political messenger with a set of eleventh-hour criminal pardons at the end of his second term....

“I think among traditional Republicans, particularly among those that are relatively wealthy or elite in status, I think [Haley Barbour] is viewed very well. To others, the average Mississippians, I think there’s a bit of a disconnect,” (Cochran challenger State Senator Chris) McDaniel said....

“The conservative movement is bigger than one family. It represents the will of the people.”

Other McDaniel supporters are less diplomatic. Tupelo tea party leader Grant Sowell branded Barbour’s support for Cochran as a purely financial calculation. “You have to ask yourself, why does Haley Barbour want him to be a senator for life?” Sowell said....

Club for Growth spokesman Barney Keller echoed that charged attack, writing in an email that Cochran’s reelection might “mean higher fees for Haley Barbour's lobbying practice, but it means more bailouts , debt-limit increases, and tax hikes for Mississippi voters.""


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