Last Southern Candidate Standing

Besides Andre Bauer, the South Carolina lieutenant governor who may soon luck into his state’s top job, the biggest beneficiary of Mark Sanford’s sudden fall from grace could actually be the governor of Mississippi. That would be 61-year-old Haley Barbour, who chaired the Republican National Committee in the mid-1990s and who is plainly interested in seeking the presidency in 2012—which explains why, as news of the Sanford scandal spread yesterday, Barbour was in New Hampshire to speak at a state G.O.P. fundraiser. The Sanford news will hardly make Barbour the ’12 front-runner, or even a top-tier contender, but it does help him in two key ways.