It has been almost 10 months since the last round of speculation surrounding a potential Presidential bid by former RNC Chairman and lobbyist turned Mississippi Governor, so apparently the powers at be inside the establishment media think it's time for another round.

POLITICO has learned that Barbour is weighing the prospect of a 2012 White House bid and convened a private meeting April 8 with a group of some of his oldest and closest advisers, some of whom flew in from the East Coast to Jackson, Miss. The gathering stretched for six hours, during which time the topic of a presidential run was discussed.

There is no mention in this long-ish article from Jonathan Martin that as of the most recent polling, in the field this past fall, that nearly two-thirds of Americans (65 percent) told Gallup that they would not seriously consider voting for Barbour for President in 2012 -- an even greater share than said the same of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin (both of whom were ruled out by 63 percent of the public). There is also no mention of the even more recent polling, from just a few days ago, showing Barbour earning the support of just 1 percent of Republicans.

Nevertheless, with the press, and apparently some DC Republicans, taking Barbour 2012 seriously, I am reminded of a great post from Atrios back in November:

Politicians Are All From The South

This was true for so many years that the politician archetype in pop culture was always some middle aged white dude with at least a modest southern accent.

For some reason, that period just seems so outdated -- which is odd considering that 2008 was the first Presidential election since 1972 in which neither party's ticket featured at least one Southerner (and since 1944, if you count Maryland's Spiro Agnew as a Southerner, which isn't such a stretch considering the kind of role played and rhetoric used by the candidate in the 1968 and 1972 Nixon campaigns). Yet at the same time, one doesn't get the sense that the American people are itching for a return to Southern dominance of Presidential politics. Which is all to say, Barbour may be an anachronism.