Even Bachmann’s Ex-Campaign Manager Thinks She Blew It On Gardasil

But you don’t have to take our word for it — Bachmann’s former campaign manager, Ed Rollins, took to MSNBC tonight to make the case.

“Obviously she would have been better if she stayed on the issue, when issue was [Rick Perry’s] executive orders and whether he basically made a mistake, as he said he did,” Rollins told Chris Matthews Wednesday. “She made a mistake. The quicker she admits she made a mistake and moves on the better it is.”

Rollins chalked up Bachmann’s decision take what a member of the audience told her at Monday night’s debate in passing and turn it into a talking point to Bachmann being an “an emotional person who has great feeling for people.”“

He acknowledged “there’s no empirical data other than one individual woman coming up to her,” to back up the claim, which has drawn fire from Rush Limbaugh and others on the right as well as the medical establishment.

“She needs to move on,” Rollins said. “The bottom line she can’t prove the case, and it’s better for her to get back on the trail.”

Rollins supposedly stepped back from day-to-day management of the Bachmann campaign into an advisory role earlier this month. He told Matthews Monday that he’s “available if she needs to call me and ask me for anything,” but these days, “I make no decisions.”