Posted on 06/10/2011 10:15:54 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Earlier this week, what could be the first shots were fired in a potential rivalry between potential Republican presidential hopefuls Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. On Tuesday, Bachmann campaign manager Ed Rollins said Palin wasn’t a “serious” candidate for president and that upset many Palin supporters, who also tend to support Bachmann.
In an appearance on Thursday’s syndicated “Hugh Hewitt Show,” columnist Mark Steyn asked the question – what is Bachmann doing with Rollins on her team in the first place?
“Well you know, let me say it as bluntly as I can because I love Michele Bachmann,” Steyn said. “I think she’s — if we have to have congressmen and congresswomen, I’d rather more were like Michele Bachmann and less were like Anthony Weiner, the obvious candidate. So I adore Michele Bachmann and I don’t see why she needs Ed Rollins.”
Steyn described Rollins as a “backroom boy” and described him as what is wrong with American politics.
“Ed Rollins … is one of the things that disfigures American politics because he’s one of these so-called backroom boys who’s always in the front window,” Steyn said. “I don’t see the point of having backroom boys who are always in the front window.”
Steyn mocked Rollins for one of his shots of Palin – her looks compared to Bachmann’s looks.
“And in this case when he started going on about — well I forget what he said, you know that his candidate was just as hot-looking as Sarah Palin, he said that about Michele didn’t he I think at one point?” he continued. “Which I agree with and I vaguely remember from – I think it was 1988 when Bob Dole’s campaign manager announced Bob Dole was twice as hot as George Bush, Sr. Obviously you know, this is part of a well-established pattern in Republican primaries.”
Rollins played an instrumental role in former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s 2008 Iowa Caucus victory, but he does come with some baggage from that win. Amanda Carpenter, then of Townhall.com, reported on a Rollins outburst at an Iowa restaurant on Jan. 3, 2008, where he made personal attacks against Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson and shared his affections for NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell and then-CNN host Lou Dobbs with the entire restaurant.
And although Rollins has a track record of criticizing Palin prior to joining the Bachmann campaign, Steyn’s advice to Bachmann was to keep Rollins in the “backroom” if he is such an essential part of the campaign process.
“But I don’t think Michele Bachmann needs Ed Rollins,” he said. “And while we’re at it – I’ll put it out there – I don’t want an Ed Rollins-fied primary season, with respect. If you have to have backroom boys, keep them in the backroom. I’m tired of backroom boys in the front window.”
Levin and Steyn have been hitting homeruns the last couple weeks.
This is good. Power is shifting.
They are not hard. Explain them to me.
"How do you feel parrotting the left-wing press and the DNC and some of the more purient parts of the GOP elite? "
"What are you, a DU troll or a GOP operative from a competing potential POTUS candidate?"
You are exactly the type of "support" Palin does not need. She does not need knee-jerk cultists who attack others because they perceive what they consider a "slight" whether there is one or not. Independents especially recoil from such mindlessness.
To disagree with my post, you either have to deny that Palin has high negatives or deny that they are mostly caused by attacks by the MSM. Either denial could only be based on pure ignorance.
Please, stop trying to support Palin in public, supporters like you only bring her down.
You agree with yourself anyway. :)
Rollins is a scum bag. I’d never even consider hiring him.
Sorry, you wrote them, I can not explain them. Although they appear to be lists of facts about Obama and Palin, I don't know what this has to do with my simple comment that Palin has high negatives mostly caused by attacks by the MSM.
[ This in no way implies that Palin should not run or cannot win, it only points out that being blinded from reality by ones emotional support does not aid the candidate. ]
I see.. then you see reality better than some that are emotional.. and make better judgements than those who go with gut reactions and emote politically..
Thats a good act.. Swartzeneggar made a couple of movies about a being with those powers.. My favorite was the shape shifting one... but in the movie the humans won..
The terminator is a myth.. nobody is that smart..
Ever since the womans vote was codified(1913).. emotions became and will remain a large part of American politics..
Republicans never learned that lesson..
OK. Works for me.
I never stated that emotions are not, or should not, be part of politics, only that we should not be blinded from reality by them. It's the difference between,
"I love Sarah Palin so much that I know she really doesn't have high negatives and that MSM attacks do not hurt her", and
I love Sarah Palin so much I'm going to do whatever is necessary to overcome the MSM attacks and reduce her negatives".
Both have emotional underpinnings, only one is helpful.
Mind if I ask, are you a Palin supporter?
I honestly can’t tell.
I honestly can’t tell.
I have been a Palin supporter well before she was chosen by McCain as his VP. As she is not even a presidential candidate as of yet, I am not an exclusively Palin supporter. I like Cain and I have always supported Bachman, at least pre-Rollins. I'm not sure I see any candidate right now who I think can defeat Obama.
What I want to see is conservatives coalesce around one candidate early, otherwise, I'm afraid it will be a repeat of 2008 and a non-conservative will be the Republican candidate. This would not only be bad in itself, it would invite third parties into the election.
I would love to support Palin as the candidate conservatives rally around. I am concerned though about self- decribed "supporters" who act in such a rabid, mindless manner that they totally turn off moderates and undecideds who might warm up to Palin. Palin is not the only one who has such supporters, of course, but they turn off potential supporters for Palin no less than they turn off potential supporters for Paul.
I know what you are saying. There are a lot of people, conservatives included, who still get their news from CNN and still watch Oprah, who are very strongly influenced by the press’s take on things.
But she is more immune than most to this kind of thing. In particular, I was thinking about the email situation, and predicting that this thing is not going to be the silver bullet her enemies are hoping it will be. On the contrary, I think she is going to get through it stronger.
From the beginning my choices have been Palin, Bachmann, and DeMint, because they were the ones who primarily came out to do battle with Obama when most of the others were running for the high grass. And one of the things I appreciated about all of them was the fact that they never attacked one another, they saw Obama as the enemy and not one another. Rollins has a tin ear, he thinks he is going to advance his candidate by attacking Palin, not realizing that Bachmann’s public and Palin’s public are the same people; you aren’t going to woo them by attacking Palin, you will win them by showing how Bachmann is the right person to advance what she and Palin both believe in.
Romney thought he had to attack Palin to get her out of the way, his minions have been attacking her from day one, and it hasn’t worked for him. Rollins is going to find that attacking her is going to damage his candidate, not help her.
Your other remarks about the power of the press are right on, but they will turn their sights on anyone who is the front runner. Out of everyone, Palin seems to be the best able to turn their attacks around. I’m thinking about what they did to Bush for 8 years, what they’ve done to Judge Thomas for example, and what they’ve done to Palin herself since the beginning. It has its effect, but she has done a remarkable job of turning it around. Out of everyone they have the hardest time with her and it drives them over the edge. But mark my words; if they succeed in putting her away, they’ll turn all that venom on the next one on their list. Its what they do.
I do too. I didn't realize until the other night that he was a former Federal Reserve chairman. I knew he had run a corporation, so he knew business, and had been a talk show guy which makes him very comfortable discussing issues off the cuff. His opinions and principles dovetail pretty closely with my own. But the Fed is a big part of our problem and there aren't many politicians who have a clue about what exactly they are or what exactly they do.
So I've added Cain to my short list. Palin, Bachmann (if she gets rid of Rollins), DeMint (if he ever decides to get off the dime) and Cain. They are for me the four musketeers.
>Poll numbers certainly can change and it is very early in the race. It is not even certain if Palin will be a candidate. If she does become a candidate, a sober assessment of where she stands, where she wants to be, and how to get there must be made. How to deal with the media is part of this. Palin’s negatives can be overcome, but not by ignoring them.
True that, P. However, I believe that in 08, she was basically handicapped by Mccain’s staff. If she is allowed to do things her way, without interference, I think she can improver her ratings.
Yeah, you have been knocked around by some on this thread. I feel bad about that, as it hampers debate.
So let me clarify for you why she will be the Republican candidate: the Democrats, by their actions since the end of 2008, have chosen her as the next Republican candidate.
Yes, you read that correctly.
She may, in fact, never originally intended to run for President in 2012. I suspect her treatment by Obama’s knee-pad battalion at the DNC, targeting her, her Governorship and her family, caused her to change direction.
The Democrats and Progressive activists never let up smearing her or her kids since the end of the 2008 election. There were so many petty nuisance lawsuits, the situation could have bankrupted the State of Alaska and the Palin family personally. She resigned, and that’s when I knew she was going to run.
Gov.Palin’s nickname in high school was Sarah ‘Barracuda’, or something along that line. It was given her because she is aggressive and a fighter.
The Democrats have known since she made that speech at the Republican Convention in Denver, 2008, that she is the one. She will undo all their evil works. They know terror and fear when she is in the public’s eye. Because she is a true American leader.
So I’ll repeat it: the Democrats, by their actions, have chosen her as the next Republican candidate.
If Sarah Palin runs, the entire game changes. Internet fundraising makes it possible for her to tap the support of millions of ordinary Americans.
What you are missing is that many of her millions of supporters will go “all in” as soon as she makes the formal announcement.
The media will be *totally humiliated* after one week of Palin fund-raising.
Then comes Palin on voter registration drives, that's going to change the shape of American political geography by itself.
The Democrats fear millions of extra working class white voters will turnout in 2012 if Palin runs. These folks despise the hard left Chicago communists, led by Obama, that are spending your country into oblivion.
You're a troll.
When you annoy people here enough that you respond, you resort to the strawman ad hominem that the irritated responses are representative of ALL Palin supporters.
Looking forward to your ZOT.
Cheers!
If you claim that Palin has high negatives mostly caused by attacks by the MSM, you are supposed to substantiate the claim by LISTING the negatives, and showing a representative sample of the MSM stories which led people to believe that negative of her.
Since you resort to trolling instead, it tends to confirm the charges of bad faith leveled against you.
Cheers!
Sorry, I mistook you for someone who was literate. Instead I find you are someone who lacks any comprehension abilities and obviously has serious mental issues. I will not attack the weak and infirm so I must end this "discourse".
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