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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Does Haley Barbour have a Confederate problem? The question is hounding Mississippi's Republican governor as he gears up for a possible 2012 presidential run. Barbour this week refused to condemn a proposed state license plate to honor Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general who was also an early Ku Klux Klan leader. Barbour wouldn't say what he thinks about an historical figure some regard as a brilliant military strategist but others revile for leading an 1864 massacre of black Union troops. Barbour dismissed the proposal as a "dead issue" because it won't be passed. South Carolina political scientist Robert Oldendick says the decision not to speak ill of a Confederate leader won't hurt Barbour in that state's presidential primary but it could play differently in other parts of the country.