Barbour who's been a long time GOP operative and corporate lobbyist urged the crowd there not do hold whoever ends up winning their nomination for president to a purity test.
Speaking at the Faith & Freedom Conference in Washington, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour warned Republican voters on Friday that they could not afford to apply strict purity tests to their presidential candidates, many of whom have raised hackles in conservative circles for various departures from the party line. Wading into very dangerous waters, he told reporters that even increasing taxes -- the ultimate Republican heresy -- should not be a dealbreaker.
Speaking at the Faith & Freedom Conference in Washington, Barbour told the audience of social conservatives that they "can't expert [the nominee] to be pure."
"Winning is about us sticking together to achieve the main thing," he said. "Odds are, whoever you choose is not going to win the nomination, there's so many of them. I'm going to fight for my person, but when its over I'm going to support the person that's going to beat Barack Obama."
He repeated the message to reporters afterwards and praised the Tea Party movement for following his advice by working largely within the GOP.
"If you had to agree with Haley Barbour on every issue it would be a mighty small party," he said. "That's just a fact, and we need people to understand that at the end of the day, Reagan was right. A person who agrees with you 80% of the time is your friend and ally, not some 20% traitor." Read on...