Rollins on Pelosi's San Francisco: "[O]ne of the bastions of lawlessness in this country"

Summary: On Lou Dobbs Tonight, GOP strategist Ed Rollins asserted that Nancy Pelosi would not "get tough" on national security issues if she were speaker of the House because she "comes from San Francisco, one of the bastions of lawlessness in this country." However, in 2004, an independent research company ranked San Francisco as the ninth-safest of the 32 U.S. cities with a population greater than 500,000.

Appearing on the September 13 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, Ed Rollins, GOP strategist and former official in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations, claimed that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi "comes from San Francisco, one of the bastions of lawlessness in this country" and therefore "is certainly not going to be the one that's going to convince Americans that the Democrats are going to get tough" on issues of national security.

As Media Matters for America has noted, Republicans and conservatives have used Pelosi and the "San Francisco liberal" epithet in an effort to, as The Hill newspaper put it, "scare voters" at the prospect of a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives with Pelosi as speaker.

In 2004, independent research company Morgan Quitno Press ranked San Francisco as the ninth-safest of the 32 U.S. cities with a population greater than 500,000, based on data from the FBI's 2003 Uniform Crime Report.

After the 1993 gubernatorial election in New Jersey, Rollins ignited a controversy when he told an assembled group of journalists that he had helped suppress the African-American vote while working for Republican Christine Todd Whitman's campaign. According to the November 22, 1993, edition of Time magazine:

In a breakfast meeting with Washington journalists, Rollins claimed that "street smart" New Jersey Republicans had doled out $500,000 in "walking-around money" to black ministers and Democratic Party activists on Whitman's behalf. But in this case the payments were actually sitting-around money, designed to counter [then-Gov. Jim] Florio's heavy support among black voters by discouraging them from turning out on Election Day. As Rollins told the journalists, "We went into black churches and we basically said to ministers who had endorsed Florio, 'Do you have a special project?' And they said, 'We've already endorsed Florio.' We said, 'That's fine -- don't get up on the Sunday pulpit and preach. We know you've endorsed him, but don't get up there and say it's your moral obligation that you go on Tuesday to vote for Jim Florio.' " He added that Republicans had paid "key workers" in black Democratic strongholds to "go home, sit and watch television" instead of delivering voters to the polls. Bragged Rollins: "I think to a certain extent we suppressed their vote."

A grand jury subsequently investigated Rollins' statements, though no charges were ever brought.

From the September 13 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight:

LOU DOBBS [host]: Well, the Democrats, always taking the high road here, [background laughing] I notice that no way have the Democrats attempted to make national security an issue here in these midterm elections, and I really respect that, [laughs] Robert.

ROBERT ZIMMERMAN [Democratic strategist]: Well, with all due respect to the distinguished gentleman in front of me, let me just say that --

DOBBS: He wants to slap the hell out of me.

ZIMMERMAN: Let me be very clear. Homeland security and fighting the war on terrorism is our threshold issue. And our ability -- our showing the need to fight it competently and separating the war in Iraq, which has been a drain from fighting terrorism, is the issue.

ROLLINS: Speaker wannabe Pelosi, who comes from San Francisco, one of the bastions of lawlessness in this country, [laughter] is certainly not going to be the one that's going to convince Americans that Repub -- that Democrats are going to get tough on these issues.

ZIMMERMAN: Our candidates are gonna carry that message, and Speaker Pelosi is going to put that into effect as speaker.

—S.S.M.