Mississippi
Gov. Ronnie Musgrove recently said he’s been focused on schools
and good jobs, but his opponent, former Republican National Committee
Chairman Haley Barbour, “has spent 20 years in Washington, DC, putting
special interests first,” The Associated Press reported.
Among
those interests, Musgrove said, is a Barbour lobbying effort on
behalf of the Mexican government to implement provisions of the
North American Free Trade Agreement. Musgrove said NAFTA had cost
Mississippi 41,000 jobs, many in the beleaguered textile industry.
Barbour
acknowledged his firm had a $35,000-a-month contract with the Mexican
government starting in 2001 to lobby on several issues, including
talks about Mexican trucks crossing into the United States.