Haley Barbour operates in multiple circles.

There’s the one most of us in Mississippi hear about and deal with — his interaction with the Legislature, House Speaker Billy McCoy and Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant and the rest of the guys over at the Capitol.

And there’s the one that had yet another photo of Barbour in Time magazine last week — his continuing interaction with his fellow Republicans nationally.

At his core, Barbour is a political whiz on a global scale — a fact brought home not long ago when in a conversation he weighed in on Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma and how the African National Congress might position itself for the future half a world away.

To borrow terms made popular by the just-retired president (who owned a baseball team and was trying to get elected governor of Texas when Barbour was chairman of the Republican National Committee), Barbour has disremembered more about the strategery of politics than most career politicians will ever know.

Of course, the gamesmanship has a purpose. For Barbour, it’s conservatism and is not a pretext, a device he uses to court voters. It is who he is, just as it was for Ronald Reagan, whom he served as senior political adviser. Conservatives believe to maximize freedom, it’s essential to minimize government. With Barack Obama in the White House, they’re living their worst nightmare.

In April, U.S. News and World Report contained yet another “Washington whisper” that Barbour would or should be his party’s go-to guy for the presidency in 2012. The governor dismissed the suggestion, saying instead Republicans should be laser-focused on next year’s mid-term voting to try to reverse or at least cut into the Democrats’ domination of Congress.

Barbour, as most folks know, earned the enduring admiration of Republicans in 1994. That year, two years into the first term of former President Bill Clinton, Barbour orchestrated a voter rebellion against Democrats, making the case that Clinton was overreaching. The GOP won big with the government-limiting pledges in the “Contract for America” and kept control of the House and Senate until 2006.

Republicans, who as individuals cover a spectrum from wildly conservative to mildly liberal, abandoned most of their pledges and, over time, ushered in today’s alignment of Democrats, who range from wildly liberal to mildly conservative.

It’s in this context that the GOP’s eyes and ears are casting about, looking for someone to lead them back to political prosperity. Barbour agreed to join with four others —  former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Sen. John McCain of Arizona — on a speaking circuit this year. They’re the key players as the party searches for what really amounts to forgiveness, but will be called a unifying theme. Some think being more like Democrats is the answer. Barbour believes more fully embracing conservatism is the key.

When he walks out of the Governor’s Mansion in January 2012, Barbour will be pushing the pension age of 65.

His most lucrative option, personally, would be a return to Barbour, Griffith and Rogers, the Washington firm he founded to represent the interests of national and international clients. The firm still exists and even still carries Barbour’s name, although he’s only paid residuals.

If he chooses to stay in the public arena, there’s the U.S. Senate seat likely to be vacated by Thad Cochran in 2014, or perhaps earlier if Cochran chooses to retire. Former Gov. Ray Mabus, a Democrat serving as Secretary of the Navy, might also be interested in that job.

And there’s the Oval Office, for which Barbour was encouraged to be a candidate in the most recent round. He was reluctant then, excusing himself by saying recovery from Hurricane Katrina had him too busy to think about anything else. He may have also seen the writing on the wall as far as the nation’s mood about Republicans, generally. As for the next presidential contest, Barbour may sense that Obama, at least for now, appears to be a shoo-in for a second term. If that continues, look for Barbour to stay out of the limelight. If he gets in it, it will be to win it — not to pad his resume.

But if the most liberal liberals in the Democratic Party overplay their power and stir up a groundswell of conservatism, Barbour is well-positioned to be the standard-bearer in 2012 or in 2016, for that matter.

As long as Haley Barbour is around, conservatives have a champion. And in case anyone thinks conservatives are fuddy-duddies who can’t learn anything from the Obama crowd, note this: Haley Barbour now has a Facebook page, and folks can follow him on Twitter, too.

More circles for a man already comfortable in many.