Barbour won't seek GOP presidential nod

JACKSON, Miss., April 25 (UPI) -- Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour announced Monday he will not seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

"This has been a difficult, personal decision, and I am very grateful to my family for their total support of my going forward, had that been what I decided," Barbour said on his Web site.

Barbour said he appreciated all the people who donated time, money and effort to set up preliminary organizations in early primary states.

"If I have disappointed any of them in this decision," he said, "I sincerely regret it."

A modern-day presidential candidate undertakes a 10-year commitment to an "all-consuming effort" to the exclusion of nearly everything else, Barbour said.

Supporters, the governor said, "expect and deserve no less than absolute fire in the belly from their candidate. I cannot offer that with certainty, and total certainty is required."

Barbour's decision means he will continue as Mississippi's governor and his role in the Republican Governors Association, as well as his efforts "to elect a new Republican president in 2012, as the stakes for the nation require that effort to be successful."