Success story

Last Friday (May 18) Chico State honored longtime Republican political strategist Ed Rollins as one of “Chico’s most successful graduates,” according to a university press release.

Rollins, who worked for four presidents, including eight years in the Reagan White House, was awarded the Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters during graduation ceremonies. He is now a senior political analyst for Fox News and appears regularly on other TV talk shows. His book Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms was a top seller in 1996.

Because of his tight weekend schedule in Chico, he agreed to a phone interview on Monday from his home in upstate New York.

He said he was notified of his award via snail mail.

“I got a letter from the president [of Chico State],” he said. “It was very funny because the envelope wasn’t official stationery. It was just a plain white envelope with my address written on it. I almost threw it out.”

He said he was flattered by the honor.

“But I didn’t quite know how or why, and I said, ‘I hope they don’t go and check my transcripts.’ ”

Rollins, who grew up in Vallejo and attended junior college there before transferring to Chico State in 1965, is funny and an interesting mix of modesty and confidence. He downplays some of his achievements, but at the same time notes that, after he quit the Michelle Bachman run for the Republican presidential nomination last year, her campaign fell apart.

And while he praises Chico State and the city itself, back in 1993 during a celebration of Ronald Reagan Day carried on C-SPAN, Rollins tripped up while offering a tribute to the ex-president.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said on national TV. “I went to school at Chico. That’s in California.”

An athlete, he wanted to attend San Jose State to play football but a back injury changed his plans.

“I couldn’t pass the physical because I’d broken my back my senior year in high school,” he said. “I had a bunch of pals who were going to Chico, and I basically climbed in a car and rode up with them to look at the school. I loved and it went over and registered. I got in the next day, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.”

This was the fall of 1965, and he stayed through June of 1968.

“I loved the beauty, and it was a small town then,” he recalled. “There were about 7,000 students then. I think the town was about 15,000. Everybody was very friendly, unlike San Jose State, which was much larger.

“When you’d walk across campus everybody would say hello to you, and the teachers took great interest in you. It was just an extraordinary experience.

“I look back and it was probably the happiest place I’ve ever been in my life,” he said, “including eight years in the White House.”

After graduating from Chico State, Rollins got an internship with Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh, a Democrat, in 1967. He met Robert Kennedy and worked for his campaign in early 1968. Kennedy was assassinated that June.

In the November elections, Republicans took over the State Assembly. Rollins was hired soon after by Republican Assemblyman Ray Johnson, whose 4th District included Butte County.

“I sort evolved from a Democrat to a Republican under the influence of Ray Johnson and Ronald Reagan,” he said.

He ran Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign in California and when that was over moved to Washington. He said his greatest success was Reagan’s campaign in 1984.

“You walk out with four or five people on your staff, and you get to build an organization that gets a hundred full-time people in Washington and 3,000 employees across the country and 600,000 volunteers. It’s quite an undertaking.”

Reagan took 49 states that year, losing only in opponent Vice President Walter Mondale’s home state of Minnesota.

Rollins is careful about predicting the outcome of this year’s presidential race between President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney

“If I knew who was going to win I’d take all the money I’ve saved for my daughter’s college education and I’d be in Las Vegas,” he said. “I don’t know who’s going to win. I can say it’s going to be a very close election. Romney survived a very, very tough primary and came through pretty undamaged. He has a pretty unified party at this point. Maybe not as much as Obama, but he is a very credible candidate.”