Kiran Chetry, Ed Rollins on GOP Tactics "American Morning" 7:57am Interview TRANSCRIPT: KIRAN CHETRY: Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin took some heat this week for suggesting that there are parts of the country that are more quote Pro-American than others. She later apologized, but we've seen this topic a lot recently, last week, Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann was under fire for her controversial comments to Chris Matthews, let's listen. CHRIS MATTHEWS: You believe that Barack Obama may, you're suspicious because this relationship may have anti-American views? MICHELLE BACHMAN: Absolutely, I'm very concerned that he may have anti-American views. CHETRY: Well, Bachman went on to say that the media should see, she would welcome the media looking at whether certain members of congress were Pro-American or Anti-American and yesterday she issued this apology. BACHMANN: I want to be clear, that I don't believe that Barack Obama is anti-American, nor did I say that he is anti-American, also, I don't question Barack Obama's patriotism. CHETRY: Michelle Bachmann is up for re-election, her congressional seat may now be up for grabs. And there's more, North Carolina Congressman Robin Hayes telling a crowd of McCain supporters last weekend, quote Folks, there's a real America and liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in and believe in God. Now, he also apologized, saying after reading it, there's no doubt that it came out completely the wrong way, this is definitely not what I intended. So, is this a new GOP tactic, and could it work, or could it backfire? Joining us now to talk about it is Republican Strategist and CNN Contributor Ed Rollins. Are these just sort of people that the GOP in general wishes would keep quiet, or is this part of the larger strategy? ED ROLLINS: I don't think this is part of a large strategy. I think they all wish they would have been quiet. They've all three were forced to apologize and the Congresswoman who would've sailed to election now has an opponent who has a million dollars raised in 24 hours against her, so you can't think out loud, you need to be very careful what you say. Particularly, where there's a camera everywhere, where there's an iPhone or whatever, so you have to be very careful what you say and you can't attack people's patriotism in this country. CHETRY: So you think that just by some of the comments that she made, her congressional seat is now up for grabs? ROLLINS: Well, the instant ability to raise money when you've got a million people on an email list who've contributed and all you need to do is send one email out and there's a million dollars there, which is makes your opponent a very competitive race. CHETRY: You also don't need to have a lot of money to be able to turn the words of somebody else into really a commercial, if you will, and email it out ... ROLLINS: And the combination of facebook and the combination of cable network, you can get these on cable network and have a big impact quickly. CHETRY: [...]One republican hasn't (apologized) yet and that's Randy Kuhl of New York, and this is what his democratic opponent posted on the web: RANDY KUHL (in Youtube vide): I firmly believe that the democratic majority wants the American public to suffer and to hurt so that they can make some political gains at election time and I think that's wrong. ROLLINS: That's an absurd statement, I mean, no offense to the congressman, but he would have been better to argue what the democrats want to do, they want to raise your taxes, they want to spend more money but the idea that one party wants to hurt the country is just not realistic and there's a backfire to it. LABEL: KC KC CNN 10-23-08 8.57 (LAD#46)ZZ

• published: 23 Oct 2008
• views: 2967