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Ed Rollins is a longtime Republican operative who back in 2009 had this to say about Sarah Palin: Ed Rollins on Sarah Palin quitting: It was a disaster and insulting

He started his career in politics back in the days of Nixon to Reagan and then he was hired by Huckabee in 2008 as his national campaign chairman. He was interviewed in the documentary called Boogie Man, about the life of Lee Atwater, the man responsible for the Willie Horton ads in which he talked about his friendship to Lee.

Rollins is considered a pro in GOPtopia:

National Campaign Director to Ronald Reagan in the 1984. In 1987, he had decided to manage the campaign of former New York Congressman Jack Kemp, convinced that Bush was not the true conservative heir to Reagan.
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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.

Rollins is now part of Bachmann's team and had this to say about Momma Grizzly:

Michele Bachmann's new top consultant, Ed Rollins, began his tenure with scathing criticism of potential Bachmann rival Sarah Palin.

"Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years," Rollins told Brian Kilmeade on his radio show, Kilmeade and Friends. "She got the Vice Presidential thing handed to her, she didn't go to work in the sense of trying to gain more substance, she gave up her governorship."

He suggested that the contrast would favor Bachmann.

"Michele Bachmann and others [have] worked hard, she has been a leader of the Tea Party which is a very important element here, she has been an attorney, she has done important things with family values."

"She is probably the best communicator [in the GOP field] now that Mike Huckabee's not in there," he said.

Ed called her out on quitting her job as Governor of Alaska which virtually no Republican has dared to do before.

And so it begins.

Dirty tricks, wedge politics, class warfare. Push polling and playing to racist instincts of voters. All's fair in political battles. If reading those things makes you think of Karl Rove, then you have forgotten the godfather of those tactics: Lee Atwater. Atwater was the originator of the winner-takes-it-all tactics, something that still reverberates today within the Republican Party. Wikipedia:

Harvey Leroy "Lee" Atwater (February 27, 1951 – March 29, 1991) was an American political consultant and strategist to the Republican party. He was an advisor of U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He was also a political mentor and close friend of Republican strategist Karl Rove. Atwater invented or improved upon many of the techniques of modern electoral politics, including promulgating unflattering rumors and attempting to drive up opponents' "negative" poll numbers with the aggressive use of opposition research. He has been characterized as the "happy hatchet man" and "Darth Vader" of the Republican Party. In spite of criticisms of Atwater's tactics as unethical and dirty tricks, he was widely regarded as a near-brilliant political operative who helped candidates to win.[..]

Atwater rose during the 1970s and the 1980 election in the South Carolina Republican party, working on the campaigns of Governor Carroll Campbell and segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond. During his years in South Carolina, Atwater became well known for running hard edged campaigns based on emotional "wedge issues".

Atwater's aggressive tactics were first demonstrated during the 1980 congressional campaigns. He was a campaign consultant to Republican incumbent Floyd Spence in his campaign for Congress against Democratic nominee Tom Turnipseed. Atwater's tactics in that campaign included push polling in the form of fake surveys by "independent pollsters" to "inform" white suburbanites that Turnipseed was allegedly a member of the NAACP.[4] Atwater also highlighted that Turnipseed had been "hooked up to jumper cables" as a teen undergoing electroshock therapy for depression.

In 1990, Atwater was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. On his deathbed, Atwater had a famous epiphany where he renounced and apologized for his toxic contribution to politics:

My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul

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The Emmy-nominated filmmaker Stefan Forbes is here to discuss his new documentary, Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, still playing in limited release around the country and available on DVD.

Please join me in welcoming Stefan and learn how the ghost of Atwater still haunts the Republican Party.