Ed Rollins: More Dirty Tricks (this time for Huckabee)

Note from Greetings: If you think Huckabee is a "down home guy", all you have to know is that Ed Rollins, part of the old Bush apologists and dirty tactics crew, is leading Huckabee's campaign. Read on.

The Sleuth, Mary Ann Akers, Washington Post, January 7, 2007

If you thought Iowa was full of dirty tricks, wait 'til you get a load of the fun Iowa caucus winner Mike Huckabee's campaign chairman has in store for New Hampshire!

A blogger for Townhall.com was the only other person in a little dive restaurant in Des Moines Thursday where the legendary political operative Ed Rollins happened to be dining with his wife - and, luckily for the blogger, talking (and cursing) loudly.

The blogger's notes are full of wonderful little nuggets, such as Rollins - who proudly considers himself a bare-knuckles bruiser - calling NBC newswoman Andrea Mitchell "sweetie," and telling CNN Immigration Czar Lou Dobbs that he'd be ready to have drinks with him after Iowa to strategize about "Hillary."

Rollins, while he munched on a tuna melt sandwich during his phone chat with Dobbs, also made reference to his now infamous comment about needing to check his temper around Mitt Romney "whose teeth I want to knock out." In the restaurant, according to the blogger, Amanda Carpenter, Rollins told Dobbs: "they are all porcelain."

Carpenter also writes that Rollins was telling his "blonde female dining companion" - who turned out to be Rollins' wife - that Rudy Giuliani is "done" and was "hurt terribly by those police cruises with his girlfriends." Rollins, in an interview later with Chris Wallace on Fox News, didn't deny saying any of this. (Click on this link to Townhall.com to see the Fox News video.)

While he "let the f-bomb fly twice," Rollins reportedly also "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 also apparently indicated he believed Huckabee was the victim of "dirty tricks."

Well, bless his heart - as they say in South Carolina, where Huck apparently will do what he's gotta do to keep Christian evangelicals on his side.