Ed Rollins

Edward J. "Ed" Rollins (born March 19, 1943) is a Republican campaign consultant and advisor who has worked on a number of high-profile political campaigns in the United States. He was named the national campaign chairman for the Mike Huckabee campaign in December 2007. [ [http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=904 Mike Huckabee for President - Blogs - National Chairman Named ] ]

Rollins was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His family later moved to Vallejo, California, because his father had found work there as an electrician at the city's Mare Island Naval Base. Rollins earned his BA in Political Science from California State University, Chico, where he served as Student Body President his senior year. He also fought as a boxer while an undergraduate. He later studied briefly at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Rollins later served in a number of Republican staff positions in the California State Assembly. [http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/findaid/rollins.htm] including Republican chief of staff for the Assembly.]

Early career

In 1968, he served as assistant to the president of Cal State-Chico. From 1969 to 1973, Rollins was assistant vice chancellor for student affairs at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also taught political science and public administration.

During the second Nixon and the Ford administrations, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional Affairs, From 1973 to 1977, he was at the Department of Transportation, where he had responsibility for the Department's liaison with the Congress and State and local governments. Prior to that, Rollins served as principal assistant to Robert T. Monagan, the Republican leader and speaker of the California Assembly, who later hired him at DOT.

He also served as dean of the faculty and deputy superintendent at the National Fire Academy in Washington.

Reagan Administration

Rollins was hired in 1981 to serve as Deputy Assistant to the President for Political Affairs under Lyn Nofziger. When Nofziger resigned in November 1981, Rollins was appointed as Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and Director of the Office of Political Affairs. He held the position until he resigned in October 1983 to lead Reagan's re-election campaign. [http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/findaid/rollins.htm] In the second term, he rejoined the Reagan Administration as Assistant to the President for Political and Governmental Affairs. [ [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=37980 Ronald Reagan: Appointment of Edward J. Rollins as Assistant to the President for Political and Governmental Affairs ] ]

Political campaigns

1984 Presidential Campaign

Rollins is best known for his work as National Campaign Director to Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential election in which Reagan won 49 states.

1988 Presidential Campaign

Rollins was a supporter of George H. W. Bush, but when Bush asked Lee Atwater to head up his 1988 campaign, Rollins decided to work for Jack Kemp.

1990 Congressional Campaign

In 1989, Rollins became the first and only non-Member of Congress to head the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House Republicans' campaign wing. [http://www.leadingauthorities.com/3817/Edward_Rollins.htm] Rollins negotiated a four-year, $1 million contract, but he resigned within two years. In the 1990 election, Republicans lost nine seats in the House. Rollins got into a highly visible feud with the President over the 1990 budget deal, in which Bush broke his 1988 campaign promise not to raise taxes. He resigned in January 1991 and began working for the Sawyer/Miller consulting firm.

1992 Presidential Campaign

Rollins was hired in June 1992 as co-manager of Ross Perot's 1992 presidential campaign. He resigned in July and initially suggested that disagreements with other campaign officials about the nature and timing of an advertising campaign led him to quit. Later, he suggested that Perot was not emotionally suited to be President. Perot initially ended his campaign the day after Rollins resigned, only to resume his campaign after the Democratic National Convention.

1993 Gubernatorial Campaign

Rollins worked as the campaign manager for Christine Todd Whitman in her 1993 New Jersey gubernatorial race. After organizing a campaign that led to Whitman's come-from-behind victory, Rollins claimed to TIME magazine that he secretly paid black ministers and democratic campaign workers in order to suppress voter turnout.

"We went into black churches and we basically said to ministers who had endorsed Florio, 'Do you have a special project?' And they said, 'We've already endorsed Florio.' We said, 'That's fine, don't get up on the Sunday pulpit and preach. We know you've endorsed him, but don't get up there and say it's your moral obligation that you go on Tuesday to vote for Jim Florio.'" After public outcry and calls for an investigation, Rollins partially retracted some of these claims telling People magazine that his comments were "an exaggeration that turned out to be inaccurate." Fact|date=September 2008

1994 campaigns

Rollins led the first successful bid to unseat the Speaker of the House when he orchestrated George Nethercutt's victory over Tom Foley. [ [http://www.leadingauthorities.com/3817/Edward_Rollins.htm Edward Rollins - Leading Authorities Speakers Bureau ] ] He was also general consultant to the Michael Huffington campaign for U.S. Senate in California, and the Bruce Benson campaign for Governor of Colorado.

Other campaigns

In 1998, Rollins consulted on the campaign of Joe Khoury, a Republican candidate in Southern California's Inland Empire. Khoury was running in the Republican primary against incumbent Representative Ken Calvert. Khoury was an economics professor at University of California Riverside and is of Lebanese descent.Most recently, Rollins consulted on the campaign of Republican New York State Senate contender Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland.

He also worked for the campaign of United States Representative Katherine Harris for the U.S. Senate. According to a "Wall Street Journal" article, the two had a falling-out, with Rollins not attending a staff meeting in Tampa and quitting a few days later after he questioned the viability of her campaign. ["The Wall Street Journal", May 10, 2006: "Katherine Harris Battles Old Friends For Florida's Keys"]

2008 Presidential Campaign

On December 14, 2007, Republican Mike Huckabee announced he had hired Rollins as his national campaign chairman and senior advisor. Rollins was later overheard saying that he wanted to "knock out [Mitt Romney's] teeth." [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/02/huckabee-adviser-wants-to_n_79354.html]

Personal life

Rollins married Shari Lois Scharfer, a former CBS television executive, in 2003. His two previous marriages ended in divorce. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E3D71538F935A25752C1A9659C8B63 WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS; Shari Scharfer, Ed Rollins - New York Times ] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Rollins Biography details at SourceWatch]
* [http://www.nndb.com/people/648/000056480/ Biography details at NNDB]