Huckabee Chairman Ed Rollins Trashes Romney, drops f-bombs

Thursday, January 03, 2008
Huckabee Chairman Ed Rollins Trashes Romney
Posted by: Jonathan Garthwaite at 4:52 PM
Amanda Carpenter files this report from the ground in Iowa:

http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/13a3122e-dfd6-4d8a-81a3-bc8c6e11f550



Republican Presidential hopeful, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, right, listens to his new national campaign manager Ed Rollins, in this Dec. 14, 2007, file photo of the news conference in Concord, N.H. Rollins, 64, who likes to compare himself to a boxer and a 'bare knuckles' brawler, is widely acknowledged as an architect of Reagan's 1984 re-election victory, a 49-state landslide.

At a hole-in-the wall Des Moines eatery, Mike Huckabee’s campaign chairman loudly bashed their top rival presidential candidate Mitt Romney and made several predictions to two national television reporters.

I overheard Rollins’ conversation while dining in a restaurant called Winston’s located close to Huckabee’s Iowa headquarters and took notes on my computer. Below is a compilation of what I heard:

-He distinctly talked about going negative in South Carolina and told someone on the phone to “put some good in there if you have to, with the bad. Do what you gotta do.”

-Rollins let the f-bomb fly twice and told his blonde female dining companion a joke about flying the Confederate flag in the South Carolina state capitol.

-Rollins indicated several times their campaign was the victim of “dirty tricks” and that they were being unfairly outspent.

-Rollins also criticized another candidate as believing the Presidency was “their birthright.”

-Rollins made a phone call to Lou Dobbs and said he would ready to have drinks with him after Iowa to talk about Hillary. There also was a reference to Rollins’ recent comments about wanting to knock Romney’s teeth out, as Rollins told Dobbs “they are all porcelain.”

-Rollins also called Andrea Mitchell and predicted Obama would take Iowa tonight. He called Mitchell “sweetie” several times.

-Rollins believes Rudy Giuliani is “done,” “has no money,” and was “hurt terribly by those police cruises with his girlfriends.”

-Rollins called said Fred Thompson was “as disgrace as a candidate. Fred has been a friend a long time, but has never converted a single vote. No one is taking him seriously.”

-Rollins indicated he feels good about Iowa and that “all the sales are made, the customers just have to show up.”