At some point in the next several weeks, former RNC chairman and current Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour will decide whether he will seek the White House in 2012. To be sure, Barbour's path to the presidency is full of obstacles. And it's not just because America's foremost neo-Confederate literally whitewashed the Jim Crow era and his own dalliance with the segregation-era throwback Council of Conservative Citizens. No, the man who brushed off slavery as "a nit" also happens to preside over the state that leads the nation in just about every social pathology you can imagine.
For example, start with health care. At the National Governors Association meeting this week, Barbour called for the Medicaid program to be converted into block grants for the states to control. To make his case, Governor Barbour updated Ronald Reagan's old myth of the "welfare queen":

"We have people pull up at the pharmacy window in a BMW and say they can't afford their co-payment."

That whopper didn't merely earn a "Four Pinocchio" rating from the Washington Post. It also obscured the fact that Haley Barbour's Mississippi is already home to perhaps the least generous Medicaid program in the nation:

Mississippi provides some of the lowest Medicaid benefits to working adults in the nation. A parent who isn't working can qualify only if annual family income is less than 24 percent of the poverty line. Working parents qualify only if they make no more than 44 percent of the federal poverty level. Seniors and people with disabilities are eligible with income at 80 percent of the poverty line...

Translated from the federal poverty guidelines, that means a working Mississippi couple with one child could earn no more than $8,150 a year and still qualify for Medicaid, seniors and people with disabilities could earn no more than $8,700, and a pregnant woman could earn no more than $20,000 a year.

But those numbers don't begin to capture the failure of the Mississippi health care system. In its 2009 state scorecard, the Commonwealth Fund ranked Mississippi dead last in its assessment of health care access, prevention, equity, affordability and lifestyles. In December, the "America's Health Rankings" project also put Mississippi at 50th among the states. And in 2009, another UnitedHealth Group funded study concluded that Haley Barbour's home state had the unhealthiest residents in America.

The education of its children provides another heart-breaking story of failure for the people of Mississippi. At $7,890 per student per year, Mississippi ranks 45th in school funding. (And even that meager figure is only made possible by substantial funding from the federal government.) According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests administered by the U.S. Department Education, only 22% of Magnolia State fourth graders read at or above grade level. By eighth grade, the figure falls to 19%. (Only the District of Columbia does worse.) It's no surprise that Mississippi has the lowest mean score on the ACT college admissions test taken by 93% of the state's high school graduates. And as it turns out, only 63% of its children even graduate, less than the national average of 69% (and much lower than the 81% in, for example, Wisconsin.)

In Haley Barbour's defense, Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the Union and has been for some time. According to the 2011 Statistical Abstract compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, Mississippi ranks first in the number of people living below the poverty line. Unsurprisingly, its 50th ranking median household income of $37,790 is the lowest in America, and over $14,000 below the national figure. Per capita income is similarly dismal. It's with good reason that in 2007, Mississippi ranked fourth in per capital federal aid.

Sadly, Mississippi is also a leader across a host of social dysfunctions. Using data from the Census Bureau and the Legal Community Against Violence's state-by-state comparison of firearm laws, the Daily Beast in January concluded Mississippi was the deadliest gun state in the nation. Its divorce rate is among America's hightest; the teen birth rate is at the very top.

(Depending on your worldview, Haley Barbour's Mississippi has one other ignominious distinction. As a new Gallup poll revealed last week, "Mississippi Rates as the Most Conservative U.S. State.")

Whatever Haley Barbour decides to do about running for president, the Republican hyper-partisan turned lobbyist turned failed state governor seems a long shot to serve in the Oval Office. But if nothing else, his home state of Mississippi serves as a horrible example to the other 49.