Ed Rollins: Michele Bachmann 'Stumbled' With HPV Vaccine Remarks (VIDEO)

Ed Rollins, who stepped down as Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign manager earlier this month, discussed the Republican hopeful's chances during an appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News on Tuesday night.

Rollins shared his take on a USA Today/Gallup poll released this week showing Texas Governor Rick Perry with 31 percent support, and Bachmann running at 5 percent. He attributed Bachmann's slide in support to Perry's entrance into the presidential contest.

"The bottom line here is she's the best candidate in this field," said Rollins. He continued, "And I think when you look at a national poll, it basically indicates people from all over the country. When you throw Texas into a national poll, it’s, you know, 10 percent of the population. So a guy that’s from Texas, obviously, has a big impact.”

Rollins noted, however, "It's not over yet." He stressed the importance of next year's Iowa caucuses for Bachmann. "If she wins Iowa, she’s still in this race," he said.

Earlier this week, Bachmann pushed back against a suggestion from her former campaign manager that she may not have what it takes to come out on top in the Hawkeye State in 2012:

[Rollins] expressed doubt on Monday that the conservative congresswoman has "the ability or the resources" to keep her run alive beyond next year's Iowa caucuses.

"We do not agree," said Bachmann on Tuesday during a stop in the Hawkeye State, according to the Los Angeles Times. "We have sufficient resources to be able to do what we’re doing and that’s to be very competitive in this race."

Addressing questionable comments recently made by Bachmann on the HPV vaccine, Rollins signaled his belief that her choice of words "hurts her at this point in time, but she'll be back debating very effectively on Thursday night." He suggested voters will ultimately forget about her remarks.

"You know, obviously, she stumbled on it the next day when she talked about the vaccine," he said. "But at the end of the day, she’s a great debater."

Bachmann linked the HPV vaccine to mental retardation. After coming under scrutiny, she sought to do damage control on her statement:

"All I was doing is relaying what a woman had said," Bachmann told The Associated Press after touring a manufacturer in Waterloo. "I relayed what she said. I wasn't attesting to her accuracy. I wasn't attesting to anything."

On Tuesday night, Rollins discussed his departure from Bachmann's campaign.

"At the end of the day, I quit because I'm 68-years-old, I've been doing this since 1968 was my first presidential campaign. I'm an old man, I don't need to basically be working 14 hour days," he said. "I helped put her campaign together. There's great people in her campaign. She is a wonderful campaigner. I love her dearly."

Video of the Rollins interview can be found above (courtesy of Fox News).

Comments

[blackreign]

08:40 PM on 09/24/2011

No No NO! A stumble is when you mispronounce a word, or maybe forget to a small fact or point to make.

But overt lies, laced with grandstanding and sensationalism is right out of the GOP playbook. If I can't trust her to recognize and admit when she is wrong, how can I trust her with ICBM launch codes as she might leave them on a napkin at Starbucks.

Bachmann, please, please keep on talking. The more she talks, the better Obama's chances.

[KSCHIEF52]

12:04 PM on 09/22/2011

Bachman will never get far she might as well give up.

[EPAB]

09:41 AM on 09/22/2011

Jeez Ed, 68 is not old.

[JrayTo]

04:32 AM on 09/22/2011

i don't think it was the "perry factor", i believe it was the "sanity factor".

[webwzrd]

11:01 PM on 09/21/2011

Stumbled? More like a permanent stagger. When it comes to comments, the lady has three left feet. Four when she isn't actively choking on one.

[Cam Brunner]

10:16 PM on 09/21/2011

Michele Bachmann and her husband are both very far out. Not good for the U.S. She is running on her own “gay agenda” platform. We are closing schools, laying people off. Families are being foreclosed on and being put out in the streets. And all this Republican running for President and her husband can do is talk about is “praying away the gay”. It is a good money maker for her, but we have bigger things to do, and I am hopping God has too. If you or your church has the gay agenda on your mind, all the time you may need to set down and talk with someone. We need to start looking at what is best for the country. Not our own religion’s views, that blow in the wind.

[ywcachieve]

10:05 PM on 09/21/2011

Notice how she always has that phony, painted on, half-smile on her face. She is as phony has a three dollar bill.

http://oba­maachievem­ents.org/l­ist

[donidarko]

10:03 PM on 09/21/2011

Michele doesn't stumble. She tumbles and rolls down the flight of stairs.

[equianimi]

08:01 PM on 09/21/2011

Here is a link to a presentation made by two members of the SANE Vax team at the British Society for Ecological Medicine - Look on the 2nd or third page. That is side effects that have been recorded by this non profit for Gardasil. http://sanevax.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/SV-BSEM-Proceedings-Global-Concerns-about-HPV-vaccines-06.26.1121.pdf

Here are the latest VAERS STATS right out of the Governments database.

Description Total
Disabled 763
Deaths 103
Did Not Recover 4,777
Abnormal Pap Smear 430
Cervical Dysplasia 157
Cervical Cancer 41
Life Threatening 444
Emergency Room 9,115
Hospitalized 2,307
Extended Hospital Stay 201
Serious 3,111
Adverse Events 23,388

It would be good if the media actual did some research rather than repeat sales pitches from pharma.

[brt929]

09:24 AM on 09/22/2011

Hmm.   Not sure I buy that garbage.  SaneVax has the sole agenda of stopping the HPV vaccine.  That means that they are ideologically driven and shouldn't be trusted.  I especially think that these "statistics" have been fabricated.  According to the CDC, no cause and effect has been established in these stats.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/hpv/gardasil.html#Serious

It is a shame that the American people can no longer trust our FDA, but the last thing I'm going to do is listen to a bunch of loons that are ideologically driven.  These are the same type of people that have attempted to draw a connection between childhood vaccinations and autism.  

[King Joffe Joffer]

07:35 PM on 09/21/2011

Rollins can continue to make excuses for his former candidate, but the realities are clear. Rollins says he quit because of his health yet we have no reports of him being hospitalized and he continues to appear on political shows almost daily. He quit because she can't be controlled, he's tired of being embarassed and more importantly he knows she can't win.

[JayStarbun]

06:53 PM on 09/21/2011

Let's talk about the fact that Ron Paul is now polling in 3rd! He is doubling the support that Bachmann has yet the media keeps talking about her. Let's talk about Ron Paul, the man the American public wants. He just won the California Straw Poll and raised $1,000,000 in 1 day.

[Kiffanik]

06:02 PM on 09/21/2011

"All I was doing is relaying what a woman had said," Bachmann told The Associated Press after touring a manufacturer in Waterloo. "I relayed what she said. I wasn't attesting to her accuracy. I wasn't attesting to anything.

People who don't fact check and repeat whatever they're told should scare thinking people. Didn't we invade Iraq over some heresay that trumped evidence?

[juliebird]

05:40 PM on 09/21/2011

Sweet Mike.
Pulling random anecdotes out of your back pocket and holding them up as scientific evidence to score cheap points is *not* an example of being "a great debater."
It's an example of being a bit dim.

[Wayne Peterson]

04:17 PM on 09/21/2011

"Stumbling" is most likely to occur when one's foot is planted deeply in one's mouth!

[KenGirard]

04:02 PM on 09/21/2011

Gee, Texas accounts for 10% of the population, so that somehow makes it so big an impact that even if we take the Texas 10% off Perry's 31% (Now 21%), and give it to Bachmann's 5% (Now 15%), Bachmann still loses to Perry.
Please tell us some more spin about why people are not voting for her.