Michelle Bachmann might have made a fatal mistake in hiring long-time GOP strategist Ed Rollins as a campaign adviser for her fledgling presidential campaign. For his first day on the job, Rollins attacked potential Bachmann opponent Sarah Palin, calling her unqualified, and not a serious candidate. As you might imagine, this has Palin supporters in an uproar, and rightly so.
I wondered where I had heard of Rollins before, and then it occurred to me. I had a lot to say about him here, where he came across as more of an Obama supporter who was actually worried about Obama looking bad. Of course, come to find out, originally Rollins was a Democrat, so it makes sense that he would fit in with the establishment, RINO wing of the GOP.
But his salvo at Palin was beyond the pale, and potentially an embarrassment for Bachmann in yet another way-no longer ago than this last January Rollins said the exact same things about Bachmann.
Professor Jacobson, he of Legal Insurrection, seems to think that hiring Rollins was a rookie mistake on Michelle's part, though it definitely calls into question her decision making abilities. Many have wondered openly whether Michelle might actually be a stalking horse, for some other candidate, in an attempt to drain Tea Party votes from Palin in the event Sarah decides to run.
It makes sense to me. Bachmann tried to get an appointment to a committee chair following the 2010 mid-term elections but was turned down. Maybe this is a way of proving, to somebody like for example Speaker of the House John Boehner, or maybe even House Whip Eric Cantor, that she is capable of being a team player. Believe me, there is nothing the Party leadership would like better than to derail any hopes of a Palin campaign. But would Bachmann go that far? Doesn't she believe in the same things as Palin, more or less? Aren't they both Tea Party favorites?
I don't know, and I'm not making any accusations, just asking questions. But the hiring of Rollins should have set off alarm bells before he ever opened his mouth. The man has a checkered history at best. Legal Insurrection commenter Trochilus contributed some links to an old story that tells a sorry tale indeed.
Rollins was at the center of a big controversy in New Jersey during the election of Republican Christine Todd Whitman as Governor. He alleged that Whitman's funds went to suppress the black vote. He later admitted he made the whole thing up. It later turned out there was indeed an attempt to suppress the vote, but the Democrats were the guilty party. By the time the truth had come out, some months after the initial allegation, Whitman's administration had been seriously hampered by the charges and the resultant official investigation and bad publicity.
So I don't know, Rollins might just be a stupid man who hasn't caught on to the fact that the political strategies of the seventies and eighties, and even the nineties, no longer works in the modern internet age where people have far greater access to fact-checking resources and where past history and records are an open book, accessible in fact at the click of a mouse.
Or maybe his presence is more nefarious. Maybe he is actually trying to sew discord among the conservative factions of the GOP with the goal of derailing not only Palin, but ultimately Bachmann as well. In the meantime, if Palin stays out of the race, Bachmann can drain more votes from the rising star that is Herman Cain, and maybe also knock out Pawlenty in Iowa. Seen in that context, hiring someone like Rollins makes sense if Bachmann is culpable in such an attempt.
Otherwise hiring Rollins was really a stupid mistake on Bachmann's part, one she needs to rectify immediately. I never thought it was a good idea for her to run a national campaign this early in her congressional career. I am sure she would be a good president-though I sincerely doubt she would be a great one-but there's the matter of getting there. I just don't think she's ready for the rigors of an electoral campaign for national office, especially for the highest office in the land. It stands to reason it would be tempting for her to jump at the chance to have somebody with the reputation of an Ed Rollins.
Unfortunately, she seems to have focused solely on his selling points and elected to ignore the more inflammatory aspects of this man's history. In doing so, she might have done a lot of damage to her credibility with the very base of support she's trying to cement.
