As someone whose #1 candidate for the GOP nomination is named Anybody but Huckabee, I was simultaneously impressed and alarmed by the former Arkansas CEO’s hiring of Ed Rollins.
Rollins — for those of you old enough to remember — was the maestro of the Gipper’s big-on-symbolism-short-on-substance-but-spectacular-nevertheless 1984 landslide re-election. More forgettably, Rollins also (forgive me) quarterbacked one of the most disappointing presidential candidacies of the last generation: Jack Kemp’s underwhelming 1988 bid.
For those of us who believe Huckabee would be the death knell of the modern GOP, let’s pray Rollins most recent candidate-of-choice will be more like 1988 than 1984.
So Mike Huckabee has brought on Ed Rollins to be his national campaign chairman. There are two things to note about this development. First, in Rollins Huckabee gets a heavyweight political operative who knows how to run and win a national political campaign. Rollins was political director to Ronald Reagan in Reagan’s first term and ran Reagan’s landslide, 49-state re-election victory in 1984. Huckabee is sending the message that he does not intend to win Iowa and then fade away. He is in it to win it. But bringing on Rollins sends a second message — that while Huckabee is selling himself as Mr. Sunshine on the trail, an above-the-fray healer who is not a member of the nasty politics-as-usual crowd, he’s just hired one of the toughest and nastiest political operatives the modern GOP has ever known. In addition to his Reagan pedigree, Rollins was a principal on Ross Perot’s 1992 campaign. The next year he earned himself both infamy and a grand jury investigation when he boasted to reporters that he had engineered Christie Todd Whitman’s razor-thin victory in the New Jersey governor’s race by paying off African American ministers to help suppress the black vote. Rollins partially recanted. But he makes no apologies about his style of politics. The title of his autobiography: Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms: My Life in American Politics.
December 14th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Sounds like the kind of guy any upstanding candidate would choose as a manager, especially a candidate favored by God…
December 14th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
One of the campaigns needs to nut up and run the Dumond video. We will then see if Mr. Bare Knuckles can catch as well as he can throw.
Watch next week for some more truth to come out on Huckabee. Get reddy Eddy.
December 14th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Any digg you anti-Huck guys can get in, huh #1?
First you wrote us off, then you ignored us, then you played us down, now you insult us, next you will be voting with us….
December 14th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Brett, nice Gandhi paraphrase
It’s just candidate supporters targeting other campaigns. Standard.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Mike Huckabee thinks I am greedy just because I believe in market capitalism.
I will not be voting for Mike Huckabee, now or ever.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
#3 Brett – I. don’t. think. so.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Rollins sounds like just the guy to work for Schmuckabee. Expect more veiled attacks on Mormonism, just coming from Rollins handiwork rather than directly from Huck-a-bigot himself. I think that if Rollins wants to jump into a hornet’s nest, go right ahead and let him. Mr. Bare Knuckles is going to be so busy trying to spin the Governors past, that he will have no time to try and spin the election for Schmuckabee.
Brett P – How does it feel over there in la la land. Whatever they put in the punch at the last Huckabee rally must still be in your system.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Here’s the thing. I want to believe that Huck is a nice guy, but I’ve seen too much stuff come out of his mouth that’s deliberately inaccurate, IMO. I’d vote for a 3rd party candidate, though, over Huck. Of course, Fred’s gonna win the nomination anyway….
December 14th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
[...] Over at Race 4 2008 I note Mike Huckabee’s disquieting hire. [...]
December 14th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Reagan was going to win in a landslide anyway. The guy hasnt run a campaign since before the interent. I just don’t see this guy as a great asset.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Good point, #10. 1984 was like Wade Phillips being handed the ’07 Cowboys.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Brett you should apply for Rett’s position. We need another huckhead posting obscure news articles with one word titles and a bunch of bad links. This site is not the same without Rett. The humor is all gone.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Jared-
“Brett P – How does it feel over there in la la land. Whatever they put in the punch at the last Huckabee rally must still be in your system.”
Disingenious at best – but good use of the copy and paste function.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
#10 – Great point. Rollins running Reagan’s campaign in 1984 and then be propped up as a campaigner extraordinaire, is like saying that B.J. Armstrong was the one responsible for all of those Chicago Bulls Championships. Yea, sure he was on the team, but we all know who the real winner was.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
12, Thanks for the suggestion – but I’m not sure I can cut it around here, you know with all these REALLY SMART FELLERS and all. Obviously they can all see the future. And me? I can only call it like I see it.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Romney must feel like a complete fool having outspent HUCKABEE 10 to 1 and being crushed like a grape in all polls. LOL!!
December 14th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Some of the same people who are saying that this is no big deal are the same people who claimed Huck would never be this high in the polls. Maybe some of you should go back and re-examine your candidate choice. It is obvious that youv’e been wrong at least once.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Is there a Huckabee blogger here anymore?? Is RETT permanently gone?
December 14th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Just heard Robert Siegel interview the Huckmeister on NPR. The lead questions were about Iran and mortgages. On both he carried the administration’s line more eloquently than the administration does. On mortgages, he explained moral hazard in plain terms and, when prodded from NPR’s liberal slant, said quite memorably: “If you pay your mortgage and behave responsibly in your borrowing decisions and your neighbor overspends, is it right for the government to take your tax money to pay for your neighbor’s irresponsibility?”
If Huck could be sold on more Friedmanesque economics, I think he could really popularize it better than nearly anyone else.
The NPR audio clip of the interview probably won’t be online ’til tonight or tomorrow.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
The Huck bloggers are still waiting for their talking points regarding the “My daughter won’t be home for Christmas” video.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
You people are forgetting the fact that this is a HUGE addition for Huckabee. His campaign manager Chip Saltsman has done a great job up until now on a shoestring budget. This is a VERY big addition for Huckabee….IMO
December 14th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Here’s the sad thing that I see pretty much whenever somebody worships the ground their particular candidate walks on: they become utterly incapable of being objective. Huck’s hiring a shady manager? Well you’re just jealous your guy didn’t hire him first! Rudy appears less-than-forthcoming with the details about his security expenses? Well, obviously it’s to protect the companies and comply with signed agreements.
Maybe it’s just me, or maybe it’s just that Fred isn’t PERFECT, but is it really very prudent to find yourself in the position of defending near ANYTHING that your candidate does or says? Just a suggestion, if any of you find yourself in that boat, you might have chugged a bit too much kool-ade for your own good.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Hey, Huckabee lied about having the Theology degree! Here’s the link.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Regarding the addition of Rollins, I guess all there is to say is, why did he wait so long to add a top name to his team?? Did he himself not believe that he was going to make it all the way, and then turn around a week ago and say, “Shucks, we may just have a shot at this thing” You could add the Gipper himself to the Huckabee camp, and it still wouldn’t make Huckabee LESS LIBERAL. His record stands in stark contrast to the positions he is taking as of late, and he has yet to answer for that.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Huckabee isn’t a liberal. He is the only one who can be trusted on pro-life issues.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Calling capitalits greedy is liberal. Raising taxes and spending is liberal. Letting criminals out of jail is liberal. Scholarships for illegal aliens is liberal. Mistaking compassion for willingness to tax and spend is liberal. Saying those who disagree with you on immigration are racist is liberal.
Hucks is conservative on a few issues and liberal on all the rest.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
No, Huckabee just loves taxes, hates CEO’s, loves creating goverment programs to make us moral, and thinks foreign policy experience is irrelevant. Definitely not a liberal
December 14th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
I could easily dispute your points, Quack. But you know what is worse?
Lobbying for a pro-abortion group and having no regrets about it (Fred). Being “multiple choice” on abortion and refusing to say that abortion is murder (Mitt).
December 14th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
WiseGuy, you have revealed yourself as a one issue voter. A candidate will never win on one issue.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Yes, Wise Guy, you can go to Hucks talking points and regurgitate them all you want.
I respect your position on abortion and I also agree with it, but I am not a one issue voter.
In fact, I would probably prefer Rudy’s judges to Huck’s judges, because I don’t want criminals release from jail for no reason and the guilty getting off on techincalities. Huck was for reducing Meth sentences. “Compassion” for a criminal is the absence of compassion for a victim. Putting terrorists in a camp in Kansas is a prelude for appointing them all lawyers and giving them twinkies instead of doing WHATEVER is needed to protect American lives.
You want the purest candidate on abortion, vote Huck. That is your choice. But do not pretend that Huck is not liberal on other issues, because each and every word of my post about Huck’s record was accurate.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
According to the Washington tax expert Grover Norquist, Huck will be fine on taxes. He even compared Huck’s mixed record to that of Ronald Reagan. But guess who Norquist said would be the worst on taxes: Fred Thompson. Huck has signed the de facto pledge against taxes while Fred and McCain have not.
Huck cut a ton of taxes in a state with the most economically liberal legislature (86% democrats). He was praised by the Heritage Foundation President Ed Fuelner for standing for fiscally conservative principles (e.g. standing against tax hikes and cutting spending). The Americans for Tax Reform are still using a fiscal conservative tactic popularized by Huckabee.
John Linder, the author of the Fair Tax bill, has already endorsed Huckabee. Only one other candidate (Fred) has followed Huck in proposing a fundamental shift in this nation’s tax structure.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
WiseGuy,
Huckabee didn’t cut spending. Spending went from $6 billion to $16 billion under his watch. Taxes increased 47%.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Huck’s statements list the tax cuts, but fail to list the tax increases. Someone who repeats his spin without even noting that the tax increases far exceed the tax cuts is either inexcusably un-informed or inexcusable un-intelligent.
The Cato institute gave him Ds and Fs for fiscal management.
Huck signed the no tax pledge and agreed to the “fair tax” as a political calculation in order to try to avoid his miserable record on spending and taxes. That is how it is with Huckabee, political calculation and spin dictate policy. He has no principles beyond pro-life.
Huckabee triangulates and marginalizes conservatives to pander for the votes of moderates and for the support for leftists in the press. This is why so many conservatives in AR are opposed to him. He will do the same to you Wise Guy.
Huck will cut and run on a principal to pander to the left, and you will remember this exchange on this blog and you will think to yourself, “Damn, old QuackHack was right all along.”
December 14th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Quack: the increases were due to either federal government mandates or having to fix the worst roads in the nation.
December 14th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
“Birds of a feather, flock together”.
Ed Rollins is a sleezeball, underhanded, dirty trickster. The man has been available for Rudy, Mitt, J-Mac, and Fred. None of them would touch him with a ten foot pole. Then Huckabee hires him.
Draw your own conclusions.
December 14th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Anybody but Giuliani is my #1, but Anybody but Huck is a close #2.
December 14th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Hey, Huck’s doing his dance again, but this time, about his Theology degree! He said he has earned enough credit to earn one, regardless of the fact that he DOES NOT have one.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/12/14/518108.aspx
Huckabee Supporters, are you really sure you want this man who kept dodge the truths as if he is in the dodge ball game!
December 14th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Wiseguy (#25), a conservative, in a nutshell, is one who believe the power is better left close to people. He also would recognize the inalienable rights (among them, right to life). Then, there is his orientation, which is to say, what is in his mind when he hears the issue. For example, I am social-oriented because I always thought first of the family or society with any issue, be it military, ecomonic or such. So, that makes me a social conservative.
Now, true, Huckabee is a strongest pro-lifer still in this race. He does recognize the right to life for everyone, including those within the wombs. However, except for this one single issue, he actually believe in using federal government to force the solutions on people. As such, he IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE! He is a SOCIAL SOCIALIST! Get the labels right!
There are more than one pro-lifer candidate in this race, so I urge you to go for the true conservative who also is pro-lifer. That’s not Huckabee. Again, he believes in using Federal Government to solve all of our problems, so he’s a social socialist!
December 14th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Wiseguy (#18) Yes, Rett has been booted off, according to some comments made in this site. However, they also are saying Kavon is working on getting one or two Huckabee replacements. The rumor is that it may be MWS. I hope so, as he’s more reasonable in his comments than Rett.
December 14th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
I used to respect Rollins before he went to work for Perot. Since then, it’s been all downhill.
December 14th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
SGS:
1. Huck is the only consistent pro-lifer. See comment #28. That alone disqualifies everyone else.
2. Huck is the most consistent defender of traditional marriage.
3. Huck is the strongest on the 2nd amendment.
4. Huck is the strongest on education (endorsed by both HSLDA and NH NEA, amazing), health care (supports free market solutions), etc.
5. Huck is definitely in mainstream conservative thought in his vocal support for Iraq and the war against terror.
6. Huck has gotten stronger on immigration.
7. Huck is definitely not a socialist — he wants free market solutions on things like health care, energy, etc.
December 14th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Sweet article.
I guess you’ll comment my diary..
Thank You
December 14th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
So Rollins is to Huckabee what Shapiro is to OJ?
So if we have two liberals running for office, on both sides of the aisle, any suggestions for the GOP?
December 15th, 2007 at 1:27 am
#41 part 6 “Huck has gotten stronger on immigration.” Well folks sometimes there is nowhere to go on an issue but up, knowhuttImsayin’?
December 16th, 2007 at 1:55 am
[...] http://race42008.com/2007/12/14/talent-acquisition/ Gary Matthew Miller 12-14-2007 [...]