Free Republic

When Michele Bachmann announced her candidacy for the presidency of the United States, she skyrocketed to the top of the Republican pack as the conservative specially anointed to be the anti-Romney candidate. Since then, other candidates emerged, rose, fell, and dropped out. However, despite all these tumultuous political changes, Michele Bachmann has steadfastly remained as the true consistent conservative -- one who can intellectually take the fight to Obama and represent the right in both rhetoric and record. It is important to note that Bachmann has a life story with which Americans can identify. Unlike the pampered patrician Mitt Romney,...

Ed Rollins is at it again. Mr. Rollins, the former campaign manager for Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, has questioned her ability to extend her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination beyond Iowa, the first state in the nation to hold a nominating contest. In an interview on MSNBC, Mr. Rollins told Andrea Mitchell that Mrs. Bachmann does not have the money or resources to compete with her better-financed rivals, like Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. “Right now, she’s competing hard in Iowa,” Mr. Rollins said. But, he added, “she doesn’t have the ability or resources to go beyond that,...

It is time for the Democrats to fire up the Ed Rollins strategy. Back in 1990, Ed Rollins, who earlier this year had served as Michele Bachmann’s campaign manager, ran the National Republican Congressional Committee. This was “read my lips” time and the country really felt betrayed by President George H. W. Bush. Rollins took a gamble. He wrote a memo to GOP candidates in which he dared put in writing the famous sentence, “Do not hesitate to distance yourself from the President.” He’d already gone to war with Bush over reading a lie on Bush’s lips in the budget...

For a while there, Rep. Michele Bachmann seemed to be all anyone could talk about in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Telegenic, controversial and aligned with fiscal and social conservatives, she soaked up media coverage and seemed to be emerging as the GOP base's preferred alternative to Mitt Romney - particularly since Mike Huckabee decided to forgo the race and Sarah Palin continued waffling about whether she would jump in. Then came August 13. It was, in once sense, a triumphant day for Bachmann: She won the (albeit overhyped) Iowa straw poll, generating headlines about how she was...

Michele Bachmann campaign manager Ed Rollins is stepping into an advisory role and deputy manager David Polyansky is leaving the campaign, Rollins said Monday. Rollins, who’s 68 and had a stroke a year and a half ago, cited health reasons for his decision. "I just don't have the endurance to go 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week anymore," Rollins told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday. (VIDEO AT LINK) Rollins said he still has great affection for Bachmann and pledged to give her counsel moving forward. "At the end of the day, I'm not going away," Rollins...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Republican presidential contender Michele Bachmann lost her campaign chief Monday, along with his close deputy, in a campaign shake-up that the Minnesota congresswoman's aides sought to downplay. Citing health reasons, veteran GOP strategist Ed Rollins stepped down as campaign manager. Bachmann said one of her strategists would take over on an interim basis as Rollins moves to a senior adviser role. "In less than 50 days and with fewer resources than other campaigns, Ed was the architect that led our campaign to a historic victory in Iowa," Bachmann said in a statement released late Monday, pointing...

Michelle Bachmann and/or her senior staff have decided that the path to short-term success is to insult Palin and to present Bachmann as the only viable alternative to establishment Republicans. First it was Ed Rollins publicly insulting Palin almost at the very moment Bachmann announced her run; at the time I left open the possibility that Rollins had gone rogue, but Bachmann herself never made it right and Rollins still is the brains behind her campaign. Next was this report of what is going on in the run up to the Iowa straw poll: ”I like Sarah Palin a lot,”...

Key members of the Bachmann for President campaign include: Ed Rollins – Campaign Manager - Ed is a veteran campaign consultant and advisor who has worked on several high-profile political campaigns. He served as White House Political Director under President Ronald Reagan, National Campaign Director for Reagan-Bush in 1983-1984, Campaign Chairman for Jack Kemp for President in 1988, Campaign Chairman for Ross Perot in 1992, and was the first non-member of Congress to serve as Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. In December 2007, he was named the National Campaign Chairman for the Mike Huckabee presidential campaign. .

CBN's David Brody interview Michele Bachmann in Iowa tonight, where she insists she 'likes' Sarah Palin and downplays reports, including by POLITICO, about jockeying between the two women: Brody: “Set the record straight with us on your relationship with Sarah Palin because the media wants to pit you, if not pit you against Sarah Palin they certainly want to compare you two. And I’m wondering how you see it specifically as it relates to Governor Palin.”Bachmann: “I like her a lot. We’re friends. I have great admiration for her, great respect for her, and we’ve never had a cross word...

WASHINGTON, DC – A new Iowa poll, which shows the most recent leanings of likely Republican voters in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, has Michele Bachmann in a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney. This morning Bachmann appeared on Chris Wallace’s Fox News Sunday and was asked “Are you a flake?” Was Wallace simply being a tough journalist, or is Fox News’ bias in favor of Mitt Romney showing? Would Wallace ask Romney, "Are you a socialist?" in reference to Romneycare. ....Romney is well known to voters because of his 2008 presidential run. Given that he has a higher national name...

...Bachmann and her staff declined to talk to about the government assistance for the L.A. Times article. But asked about the issue on "Fox News Sunday," she insisted that she and her husband had not benefited at the expense of federal and state taxpayers. "First of all," she said, "the money that went to the clinic was actually training money for employees. The clinic did not get the money. And my husband and I did not get the money either. That's mental health training money that went to employees." As for the farm, she said it belonged to her father-in-law....

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said Friday that it's her sense that Republican voters are "very satisfied" with the field of presidential candidates. Following Monday's debate in New Hampshire, Bachmann said voters were happier with their options. "I think people, especially after the debate on Monday night, were very satisfied with what they saw with the candidates," she said on Fox News. [...] She passed, though, both at the debate and on Fox, at leveling tough criticism at former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) state healthcare law. [...] Rather, Bachmann suggested she's more likely to train her sights on President Obama...

While I freely concede that both Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have a right to run for President, it is impossible to overlook the fact that their recent benefactress, Sarah Palin, is rolling out her own Presidential campaign at the same time. This would not generally be extraordinary. In politics, alliances are sometimes (although not regularly) forged and broken. However, in my forty years or so of close political observation, I cannot remember an analogous situation in which the beneficiaries of one politician turn on their benefactor (especially a benefactor as conspicuous as Palin) so shortly after having obtained and...

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...

I feel a certain sympathy for Michele Bachmann and if it came out that she ordered Ed Rollins to launch that premtive strike against Sarah Palin (or at least agree to it), I wouldnt blame her. The fact that Ed Rollins is leading her campaign is evidence that Bachmann is serious about making a go for the nomination. Up until this point Palin is still relying on sycophantic amateurs for serious political advice. There is no certainty that Palin is even running yet (although I'm thinking she will). If I were Michele Bachmann, I would be very resentful of Palin's...

His hire was also her first real campaign decision. If you’re not up to speed on the story, here’s what’s going on. Rep. Bachmann hired veteran Republican campaign strategist Ed Rollins to manage her campaign. Campaign managers have to carry a few qualities, among them toughness, a bit of ruthlessness, communications and fundraising savvy (and there are many qualities packed into those two qualities), and a certain ability to provide useful leadership and simultaneously blend into the background. That last is because, while they manage the campaign, the campaign isn’t about them. It’s about the candidate. But Ed Rollins tends...

Michele Bachmann adviser Ed Rollins' response to the sharp criticisms from Sarah Palin's world just now was to "let it go." But he didn't go quietly, telling me, "I haven't lived in Washington D.C. in 15 years, and I've been taken to the woodshed by the big boys." "As far as we're concerned, it's not" an ongoing fight, he insisted. "This was my one comment, which I shouldn't have made, at the end of the day this has nothing to do with Michele, Michele's campaign, or any of the rest of it. This was my transition from being an analyst...

An adviser to Rep. Michele Bachmann sends over this fairly ruffles-smoothing statement:   “The Congresswoman has nothing but admiration and respect for Governor Palin. The two enjoy a good friendship, and Rep. Bachmann looks forward to working with the Governor for the common goal of making sure President Obama is a one-term President.”

Michele Bachmann adviser Ed Rollins' response to the sharp criticisms from Sarah Palin's world just now was to "let it go." But he didn't go quietly, telling me, "I haven't lived in Washington D.C. in 15 years, and I've been taken to the woodshed by the big boys." [.....] Of Team Palin's call for a retraction, he said, "What's the retraction? I say she's serious?"

Washington (CNN)– A top adviser to Sarah Palin fired back at Ed Rollins, the longtime Republican operative tapped to run Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign, after Rollins dismissed Palin as "not serious" in a radio interview this week. Rollins also told Politico on Tuesday that Bachmann will "be so much more substantive" than Palin, and said he is "not afraid" of the former Alaska governor. Michael Glassner, the chief of staff for Palin's political action committee, issued a rare public statement Wednesday rebuking Rollins as a Washington relic. "Beltway political strategist Ed Rollins has a long, long track record...