Opinion: Breaking News: Rollins new chair of Huckabee campaign

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Minutes ago surging Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee named Ed Rollins as his new national campaign chairman and senior advisor.

The goateed Rollins is something of a political legend in GOP circles for having been the architect of Ronald Reagan’s 49-state landslide re-election victory in 1984 against Walter Mondale.

Huckabee introduced Rollins at a Concord, N.H. news conference praising his ‘extraordinary record of bringing achievement and victory to presidential campaigns.’

‘Ed will helps us take this campaign to the next level and next step,’ Huckabee added.

The first words out of Rollins’ sometimes sharp-spoken mouth were, ‘I never played baseball and have never taken steroids.’

He called the Huckabee campaign ‘a very exciting place right now. We are on the verge of winning Iowa and coming back here (New Hampshire) and doing very well.’ He recalled losing a very close New Hampshire primary to Gerald Ford in 1976 and then coming back to win the state and the nomination and the presidency in 1980 over Jimmy Carter.

--Andrew Malcolm