No money, no ideas: Ed Rollins on Michele Bachmann

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ABC News:

Michele Bachmann has "run out of money and ideas" and can no longer expect to win in Iowa, her former campaign manager told ABC News on Monday.

Ed Rollins, who left the campaign in September, said the Minnesota congresswoman had backed off earlier comments by her campaign that Iowa was a "must-win" state because she lacked the finances, campaign structure, and ideas to win the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

"She's still saying the same things she said in the first the debate. There's no substance. She says, 'I'm going to repeal Obamacare.' But she's been saying that from Day 1. I told her: That's your Tea Party speech, now you have to say what you’re going to do next."

Rollins saw the writing on the wall a long time ago and was quick to get the hell out while the gettin' was good. But didn't he see this coming all along? Did he really think Bachmann had potential, that she actually had serious ideas? Perhaps he thought he could mold her -- and perhaps all he's doing now is saying that she's nothing without him.

And yet, doesn't he sell her short? She's not just about repealing the Affordable Care Act, after all. What about converting gays? She and her husband are really into that. What about that anti-gay, anti-porn pledge? Was she not serious about that? What about her affinity for "intelligent design"? And all of her conspiracy theories, like the one about the dollar giving way to some international currency and about the U.S. giving way to the nefarious global economy? And what about her various crazy right-wing views generally? And her radical fundamentalist theocratism?

Hey, you can't say there aren't ideas there. Crazy, extreme ones, yes, if also fairly mainstream Republican ones.

It seems to me that Rollins, who obviously made an embarrassingly bad move going to work for her, is just trying to excuse himself of any and all responsibility for the pointless mess her campaign has become.

Is Ed Rollins' latest move a sign Bachmann campaign is doomed?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Interesting:

Ed Rollins is going to be stepping back from day-to-day management of the Michele Bachmann campaign, and moving into a senior advisory role, he said in an interview.

Rollins said the reason for the change is personal — his health and the rigors of a campaign.

"I wish I was 40 years old, but I'm not," he told POLITICO. "I'm 68 years old, I had a stroke a year and a half ago. I'm worn out."

The change is coming just as Bachmann is entering a new phase of the race, searching for the right way forward against the Rick Perry juggernaut, which has sucked away the oxygen since her Ames Straw Poll win.

Rollins insisted this represents a change of schedule but not his commitment to Bachmann.

"I want nothing but the best for her, she's a great candidate, I'll continue to be there for her," he said.

Hmm. Maybe.

Maybe his health really is a concern. But you can't help but wonder, can you?

The guy's not stupid. He's been around. And maybe, just maybe, he sees the writing on the wall, what with Rick Perry well ahead in Iowa and looking more and more like the frontrunner -- and certainly like the main right-wing opposition to Mitt Romney. (Would Rollins be stepping down had Perry not entered the race?)

Not so long ago, it looked so good for Bachmann -- when she was new and fresh and the anti-Romney. But now, things having changed so dramatically, maybe Rollins just doesn't want to be so deeply involved with a loser. 

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Elephant Dung #35: Palin's chief of staff slams Bachmann advisor Ed Rollins

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

 (For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

Ed Rollins struck first, calling Sarah Palin not "serious" and saying that his soon-to-be candidate (?), Michele Bachmann, looks good by comparison.

Needless to say, that didn't go over well with the Palin camp:

"Beltway political strategist Ed Rollins has a long, long track record of taking high profile jobs and promptly sticking his foot in his mouth," said Sarah PAC chief of staff Michael Glassner in an emailed statement. "To no one's surprise he has done it again, while also fueling a contrived narrative about the presidential race by the mainstream media. One would expect that his woodshed moment is coming and that a retraction will be issued soon."

Oooh. Aaah.

Rollins was right about Palin, if not so much about Bachmann, but it seems to me that his intention was not to much to dismiss Palin altogether but to spin his candidate as something other than a Palin clone or, worse, a lesser Palin, an unsatisfactory replacement for the real thing. So he notes that Palin isn't serious while Bachmann is, that Bachmann has extensive experience while Palin doesn't.

Will it work? Maybe. If Palin doesn't run, and she likely won't, there's a huge opening for Bachmann to emerge as the preferred right-wing (i.e., Republican mainstream) alternative to Romney and perhaps Giuliani. Pawlenty is trying hard to be that altnerative by stressing his conservative bona fides (or making them up on the go), but he lacks Bachmann's dynamism, charisma, and Tea Party appeal.

But it will be hard for Bachmann to make her mark with Palin hovering over the race and sucking the energy out of the Republican field by dominating media coverage. The longer she hovers, without formally announcing one way or the other, the better it is for Romney, who remains the frontrunner without a credible right-wing opponent (other than Pawlenty, perhaps), but the worse it is for Bachmann, who at some point needs to jump in and stake out her territory while attracting as much coverage as possible. Rollins knows this, surely, and what he said was intended to drive in the wedge to promote Bachmann at Palin's expense, encourage the media to dismiss Palin (as if that's possible), and add to the various Republican efforts to destroy Palin's credibility.

Ultimately, there will be peace between Palin and Bachmann, and Palin may even endorse her, but until Palin gets out of the way, we can probably expect more of this to come.

Elephant Dung #34: Bachmann advisor Ed Rollins says Palin isn't serious

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

Politico's Ben Smith:

Michele Bachmann's new top consultant, Ed Rollins, began his tenure with scathing criticism of potential Bachmann rival Sarah Palin.

"Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years," Rollins told Brian Kilmeade on his radio show, Kilmeade and Friends. "She got the Vice Presidential thing handed to her, she didn't go to work in the sense of trying to gain more substance, she gave up her governorship."

It is perhaps a sign of Bachmann's seriousness that she hired Rollins, a long-time Republican operative, and she may just jump in the race herself before too long. 

And, of course, Rollins is right about Palin. She's not serious at all.

But is Bachmann the savior of the GOP? And is she really serious herself with all those crazy conspiracy theories?

Elephant Dung #6: Rollins tells Palin she's no Reagan

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

Long-time Republican operative/strategist Ed Rollins has penned a piece for CNN in which he tells Sarah Palin to cool it -- and, well, politely puts her in her place:

[Q]uit comparing yourself to Ronald Reagan. To paraphrase the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen's comments to Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice presidential debate: I knew Ronald Reagan, and you're no Ronald Reagan.

You're a media star and a great curiosity. You were plucked out of political obscurity because of the whim of presidential contender John McCain, who didn't know you and made you into an overnight sensation. You performed well for three weeks in the campaign, did better than expected against Joe Biden in the debate and then you self-destructed.

You clearly weren't ready for prime time, but neither was your running mate. After the election, you quit your day job as governor of Alaska with 18 months left in the term and went out and made a fortune making speeches and selling a book.

It was certainly your right, and you're not the first one to cash in on fame. Millions of Americans love you, and I am sure millions more hate you. Unfortunately, that's what happens in politics.

You can be a contender for the Republican nomination in 2012, but you're a long way from being the nominee. You're going to have to beat some very formidable candidates with way more experience and far superior knowledge on issues foreign and domestic. And to rate your chances today, I would put them at "possible" but not "probable." It's an all-uphill battle.

Right now, polls indicate you wouldn't carry your home state of Alaska.

Etc., etc. It's fairly tame, but the message is clear.

And will Palin get that message and do as Rollins suggests? Of course not. She may "want to be a player," but she's not about to "go to school and learn the issues" or "[p]ut smart people around [her] and listen to them." She's not about to do the hard work necessary to become "a serious presidential candidate." She just wants to build her brand and take what she thinks is the easy way up the ladder.

"If you want to be an imitator of Ronald Reagan, go learn something about him and respect his legacy." Yeah, good luck with that.

Rollins concludes by calling Palin a "gadfly," intimating that she should probably just remain on the sidelines in her "forum" -- presumably he understands this to be Fox News, Facebook, and her cult of personality on the Tea Party right.

No, such euphemistic criticism from a somewhat has-been like Rollins doesn't mean all that much compared to Palin's massive popularity among Republicans. But you can add it to the list, a growing list of opposition to the GOP's major star and de facto leader.

There's a deepening divide in the party between the pro-Palin and anti-Palin factions. The former is much larger, but, clearly, many Republicans have had enough.

Tough guy Ed Rollins

By Capt. Fogg

Well, what can we expect Ed Rollins to say when he tries to make a case for Barack Obama's weakness? After all, Rollins can't make much of a case for anything but "toughness" in the Reagan administration he worked for or indeed in the party he's long been part of. Not that he will get specific about Reagans testicularity, because if a Democrat had "cut and run" in Lebanon, Ed would still be howling about his effeminate weakness. But one can't take Ed for anything but a low key polemicist, an Ann Coulter without the filed teeth, a Lower fat Limbaugh with less gas content. It's all theater; all a continuing part of the fear mongering the humiliated GOP has been using to make us feel good about giving up freedom and prosperity and distract us from the abject failure of all its promises.

So Barack Obama wants to be loved, says Mr. Rollins. Horrors!

He wants to be loved passionately and daily,

he writes for CNN.com, as though he could know. As though he learned of the president's inner-most dreams through pillow talk, as though he weren't building yet another straw man, stuffed with pot-pourri and dressed in lace panties:

He wants to be loved by the Democrats on the Hill and even the Republicans who have still not given him any love. [despite many having voted for him]

He wants to be loved by the Europeans who have made a career out of badmouthing U.S. presidents and their policies.

Which is Ed's way of placing the blame for calling them all terrorist supporters of the Axis of Evil because they didn't agree about our false assurances about Iraq on them rather than on George Bush's glaring weakness of character.

The real example of searching for love in all the wrong places was last week's lovefest south of the border when, in effect, he appeared to be hugging Castro, Ortega and Chavez who have spent their lives fighting everything the United States stands for,

continues the puffed up patriot, twirling his baton, wishing you could believe that George Bush's Chavez handshake was fundamentally different than Obama's Chavez handshake, which to a prejudiced eye appeared to be a "love fest," and that these banana republic leaders were, by dint of socialistic ambitions, "fighting against everything the United States stands for." The very nerve of showing basic respect instead of making threats! The very weakness of decency and dignity!

Perhaps they do fight against some of the things we stand for, in their own countries, Like Ronald Reagan's death squads and the feudalism of foreign corporations, but as a threat to the security and way of life of our republic, they can't do the kind of damage that's been done by Rollins' party, nor are all the things we've been standing for, like torture, military aggression, supression of dissent, and bombing the bejusus out of innocent civilians, all that worth defending. I hate to mention it, but Jesus lost his life fighting against many things we've wasted time standing for, nor did he think love was such a terrible and weak thing.

Still, Obama should court respect, says Ed, meaning fear. He should just spit on these spic bastards and tell them in no uncertain terms just how many bombs we could drop on their miserable citizens just for voting against our wishes, like we did in Veet-nam. Fear is what we want, not love: grovelling, abject submission to the will of the American President, through fear.

Now, of course, appealing to the basest sentiments of the public with slander and libel and a smorgasbord of false accusations, as the Republicans have done, is really all about wanting to be loved, only it's more pure by virtue of its dishonesty and hostility.

Consider the torture memos. Obama was weak fo releasing them: weak for allowing the Justice Department to decide who to go after, and worst of all, he looks weak, says Ed, to both the people who wanted to hide the information and the people who are our for Republican blood.

Weak if he does, weak if he doesn't. In fact, the courage to ignore the passion of either mob must be weakness, right?

Weakness is the death knell for a president. With 1,366 days to go before this term is up, Obama's got to get tougher or he will be viewed as a personality who reads well from a teleprompter.

So Ed is already partying like it's 2012, and he's trotting out that shibboleth about telepromters to prove his comfort with the most childish and idiotic of his party's giggling points. Pretty weak, Ed, I'm sorry to have to say it.

But that's what America liked about Kommander Guy Bush and Reagan -- toughness -- reading tough words written for him by arm chair belligerents like Ed. I just wish someone would define the concept well enough to differentiate it from pandering, from intransigence, stupidity, dishonesty, unwillingness to learn -- even to make peace.

I just wish politicos like Ed Rollins could explain to me why it's wrong to expose atrocities rather than be grateful to the perpetrators who have allowed us 1200 some odd days of not being attacked by a dozen or so saboteurs -- and why being so pants-wetting fearful justifies taking our freedom, respect, dignity, and prosperity away while he whimpers about Obama being weak.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)